A Deadly Assassin
by Brownbug
Summary: Kiriban for Aietradaea. Tejana has been waiting for her father to return to Gallifrey for a long, long time, but when he does, it's not for her and it breaks her hearts. But the Doctor isn't the only renegade Time Lord to return home. Four, OC, Master.
1. Chapter 1

**WARNING: This story is a prequel to the "One Moment in Time" series. You will probably need to read all of them to follow exactly what's going on. You will definitely have to have read "My Bad Bad Angel" before reading this one, OK?  
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**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Doctor Who or anything remotely related to it.**

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hi all! This story is a kiriban for the amazing Aietradaea, to say thankyou for being my 500th reviewer on my other story, "Return to the Valiant", which was a pretty special event for me! Aietradaea requested to see how the events of the Tom Baker episode, "A Deadly Assassin", played out in my Whoniverse, since I briefly referred to it in "Return to the Valiant." So here it is - my very first "re-telling" of an actual episode from Tejana's point of view (normally I only do original stuff). It's a multi-chapter fic (fairly short chapters, I know, get over it please) and I will be posting a chapter every couple of days, if you would like to follow. I have no idea how I've done with this - it was a lot more difficult than I thought to fit in with someone else's vision, rather than following my own, especially with all the 1970s dialogue, so it does get a bit AU at times. So I would really, really appreciate any reviews/feedback you can give me!**

**Aietradaea, you are terrific and I hope I've done you proud!**

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><p><strong>CHAPTER ONE<strong>

"No more exams!" Damon exclaimed delightedly, stretching his lanky frame out on his back on the freshly-mown red grass, his head settling in Tejana's lap. "I can hardly believe it!"

Tejana smiled down at her friend, her hand automatically moving to fondly tousle his dark hair. "Oh, make yourself comfortable, why don't you?"

"I deserve to relax," he replied in a complacent tone. "And besides, you owe me one. After all, whose expert tutoring helped you pass TARDIS Engineering?"

"Yours," she admitted. "Only just, though."

"A pass is a pass," he said, waving his hand loftily through the air.

The two young Gallifreyans were sitting under one of the silver-leafed trees in the large park situated in the very centre of the Citadel, enjoying their unaccustomed leisure time, watching people walking to and fro along the paths in the late afternoon sunshine.

"Just think," Damon continued excitedly. "It's only three weeks until we graduate from the Academy. We'll be fully-fledged Time Lords at long last."

"Yeah, great," Tejana replied, her voice curiously flat. "I can hardly wait."

Her lack of enthusiasm could hardly have been more evident. Damon's dark eyes sought hers in concern. "What's the matter, Tejana?"

She sighed heavily. "Don't get me wrong, Damon, I know you're all excited about your new position and I don't blame you, There aren't many Time Lords chosen to become Matrix Technicians right out of the Academy – it's an amazing achievement and I'm so proud of you. But, as far as I'm concerned...well, let's just say that being Cardinal Borusa's personal assistant isn't exactly what I've always dreamed of doing with my life."

Damon took her hand and squeezed it comfortingly. He knew very well what Tejana had hoped to be doing by now. She had expected her father to come back for her, to take her travelling the stars with him again. The Doctor had left Gallifrey long ago, when Tejana was just a child, to wander the Universe in a decommissioned TARDIS. When she got older, Tejana had stolen a Time Ring and had run away to join her renegade father, travelling with him for a time, before the High Council had caught up with them and brought them both back to Gallifrey. The Doctor had been put on trial for interfering in the affairs of the Universe and had been sentenced to exile on the planet Earth. Tejana had been dealt some horrific punishment of her own, before being reconfined to the Academy to complete her studies. Since then, the Doctor's exile had been rescinded, but he had not returned to Gallifrey. At first, Tejana had watched for him eagerly, always expecting to see the blue police box materialising, convinced that her beloved father would never abandon her, sure that he would come back for her as soon as he could. But as time had gone on with no sign of the Doctor, Damon had seen the hope slowly die in her eyes, leaving behind a cold, cynical emptiness that nearly broke his hearts. Bit by bit, he saw the dreamy, impulsive, optimistic girl he had grown up with disappear, to be replaced by a controlled, reserved young woman with a hard, practical edge. She very rarely mentioned the Doctor any more, even in passing. Outwardly, she seemed completely resigned to living the rest of her life on Gallifrey, much to the delight and relief of her tutors. But Damon, who knew her best of all, couldn't help wondering what was really going on behind those impassive blue eyes. Somehow he doubted that the wild desire for freedom that had always burnt so strongly within her had been fully quenched.

"Maybe it won't be so bad," he said now, trying to get her to look on the bright side.

"Making Cardinal Borusa countless cups of tea, keeping his data records up to date, fetching and carrying for him, picking his formal robes up from the cleaners," Tejana answered, cataloguing her duties in a dull tone. "Oh yes, it'll be fantastic I'm sure."

"It could be worse. I mean, considering..." Damon's voice trailed away into uncomfortable silence.

"Considering what, Damon?" she returned sharply, her body suddenly tense. "Why don't you just say it? I'm lucky to get any sort of respectable position at all, considering my father's a convicted criminal and I'm a known absconder, right?"

"You know I don't think of you like that!" Damon retorted, stung. "And neither does Cardinal Borusa, otherwise he wouldn't have hand-picked you for the position. He's a consummate politician, he never does anything without good reason. I think it's a public vote of confidence in your family."

Tejana seemed to relax a bit at his words, her fingers lacing softly through his hair again. "Maybe you're right," she allowed. "But I still wish I didn't have to go to this stupid Presidential Resignation Day ceremony this evening with him. I can't think of anything more boring!"

"History in the making, my dear Tejana," Damon joked in a pompous voice, giving a perfect imitation of Cardinal Borusa. "How on Gallifrey could you possibly find that boring?"

Tejana laughed. "How, indeed?"

"Ah, you never know, something might happen to liven it up."

"Oh yeah, like what? Everyone knows the President will name Chancellor Goth as his successor, it's a foregone conclusion."

Damon sat up, his eyes sparkling with teasing amusement. "You'll get to meet the famous Runcible, the Public Register Video reporter, that has to mean something. I hear he has an eye for a pretty face. Maybe you'll get to star on 'Gallifrey Today'."

"Runcible the Fatuous," Tejana giggled.

"Huh?"

"He was at the Academy at the same time as the Doctor," she explained. "The Doctor's friend, Koschei, nicknamed him 'Runcible the Fatuous' because he was so pretentious even back then. According to the Doctor, it kind of stuck, all through Runcible's Academy years. Apparently Runcible never forgave any of the Deca for that."

Damon frowned in a clueless fashion. "Koschei?"

"Yes...otherwise known as the Master," Tejana replied, glancing at him oddly. "I've told you about him before. He was part of the Deca, remember?"

"Nope, the name doesn't ring any bells," Damon said with a shrug. "All the same, I can see why Runcible's nickname stuck. It suits him perfectly."

_That's weird, _Tejana thought in puzzlement. _We've definitely discussed the Master before and Damon knew who he was then._

Normally Damon had perfect recall - annoyingly so, actually. It was one of the reasons he performed so well in his written exams. It wasn't like him to forget something. Still, he had been studying really hard over the last few months. It probably wasn't surprising a couple of things might end up slipping his mind. And it wasn't as if it was important.

She climbed to her feet, brushing a few stray pieces of grass from her tunic as she made ready to leave. "I suppose I'd better go and get ready. It always takes me ages to get into my formal robes," she said with a sigh. "I just know I'm going to be bored out of my brain. Let's face it, Damon, nothing exciting _ever _happens at these functions."


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who reviewed yesterdays' chapter - MayFairy, Romana-II, The Mouse's Rose, Bad Dog No Biscuit, tree1138, Astra68 and Omniac. It's really great to get some feedback on this one, since it's so far outside my comfort zone. I know this is a quick update, but my keyboard is playing up and I'm bored!**

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><p><strong>CHAPTER TWO<strong>

Garbed sumptuously in rich purple formal robes, Cardinal Borusa sailed grandly along one of the upper galleries of the Panopticon, giving condescending greetings to the Time Lords he thought merited his attention, coldly ignoring those he did not. As his personal assistant, Tejana followed reluctantly in his wake, holding a data tablet and stylus in her hands, ready in case the great Cardinal suddenly wished to record any important thoughts. She had never actually been inside the Panopticon before and she had to admit it was impressive. It was an enormous hexagonal chamber with walls carved from massive slabs of dark green malachite, each of the six sides representing one of the original founders of Time Lord society. At each corner of the room there was a huge, black statue of each founder:- Rassilon, Omega, Pandak, The Other, Apeiron and Eutenoyar. Presently, the massive chamber was filled with a vibrant swirl of colour and movement, with each chapter of the Academy represented by an array of Time Lords in their multi-hued robes and high formal collars – as well as the scarlet and orange of the Prydonian chapter, there was also the green of the Arcalians, the heliotrope of the Patrexes, the silver-grey of the Dromeians, the light-blue of the Ceruleans and the primrose yellow of the Scendles. Tejana herself was dressed in Prydonian robes, her long blonde hair swept up into a complicated arrangement, confined by an intricate tiara made of silver filigree, which dug into her head and made it ache. She was not required to wear the formal Prydonian high collar and skull cap until after she graduated from the Academy, a temporary reprieve for which she was very grateful.

As Borusa's entourage approached the stairs leading down to floor of the great chamber, a weedy little man dressed in robes of brown and cream obsequiously approached the Cardinal.

"Cardinal Borusa, if you can spare a moment, Sir?"

Tejana nearly disgraced herself by giggling. This was none other than the very same 'Runcible the Fatuous' she and Damon had been joking about earlier that day.

Borusa looked haughtily down his long nose at the reporter. "Yes?"

"Public Register Video," Runcible said, bowing respectfully. "If I could ask you a few questions?"

"Good gracious!" Borusa exclaimed. "Runcible, is it not?"

"Yes, Sir."

"One of my old pupils at Prydon Academy."

Runcible visibly preened himself at this recognition from the great man. "And may I congratulate you, Sir, on your elevation to Cardinal?"

"Thank you, Runcible," Borusa replied curtly, already beginning to move on. "Good day."

"No, no, wait, Sir!" Runcible gabbled, seeing his opportunity for an interview swiftly disappearing. "Please, if I could ask you a few questions?"

Borusa looked back at him coldly. "Runcible, you had ample opportunity to ask me questions during your mis-spent years at the Academy. You failed to avail yourself of the opportunity then and it is too late now. Good day."

With that, he swept onwards, leaving Runcible behind him with his mouth hanging open in shock. Amused, Tejana gave the little reporter a grin and a quick wink as she passed. If Borusa continued to snub people like this, perhaps her evening would not be so quite so boring after all.

Pulling himself together, Runcible turned back to the camera and said smoothly, "I'm afraid that Cardinal Borusa cannot, at this present moment in the time band, commit himself. However, it is certainly no secret that a very senior member of the Prydonian Chapter, and the present number two on the Time Lord Council, Chancellor Goth, is the widely fancied candidate."

Just then, following behind Borusa, Tejana felt a strange connection within the psychic link, something out of place and yet intensely familiar to her, something she knew did not belong on Gallifrey. She drew in a sharp breath, her hand flying to her head, where the silver tiara pressed uncomfortably into her temples. It felt like...but, no, it couldn't be, it was impossible. The Doctor was light years away across the Universe somewhere, doing his own thing as always. There wasn't the slightest possibility that he was here, somewhere in the crowded Panopticon. _There, the weird feeling was gone now_. Whatever it was, it had slipped away again. It must have been her imagination, a confused psychic reaction brought on by the close proximity of all these Time Lord minds. Frowning in concentration, she raised her mental shields to maximum, purposely isolating her consciousness from the psychic link altogether.

"Lady Tejana, are you all right?" a solicitous voice asked in her ear.

Tejana's mouth went dry in instant revulsion, her entire body rigid with disgust. She recognised that smooth, lascivious voice easily enough. She heard it over and over again in her nightmares, those dark, depraved dreams that constantly haunted her, gradually eating her alive from the inside out.

"Councillor Rohan," she said woodenly, taking a defensive step backwards, away from his loathsome presence. "I'm fine, thank you."

Outwardly, she managed to maintain her composure. But inwardly, she was screaming in horror, her entire being shrinking away from this sick travesty of a man.

"Are you sure?" he asked, moving closer again and putting his hand on her arm. "You look rather pale. Would you like to sit down?"

Tejana looked down at his pudgy hand, her skin crawling where he touched, a wave of nausea overwhelming her as she remembered those vile fingers touching and defiling her, ravaging her most private places without compassion or mercy. Rohan smiled, guessing her thoughts, his eyes sliding knowingly up and down her slender body. He felt quite safe – he knew she was too proud to ever tell anybody of the shameful abuse he had inflicted on her during the so-called "re-education" sessions the High Council had ordered for her after the Doctor's exile to Earth. And he was right. Except for Damon, she never had told anybody. Since then, praying for forgetfulness, she had done her utmost to avoid Rohan wherever she could. Unfortunately, it appeared her luck had finally run out.

"It's been quite a while since we've seen each other, Tejana," he said softly. "Perhaps it's time we caught up. I'm sure I could arrange something if I put my mind to it."

Tejana shuddered, feeling as if the jaws of a trap were closing in around her, knowing perfectly well she was helpless to stop him if he chose to victimise her again. He was a highly-respected member of the High Council. She was the disgraced daughter of a convicted criminal. Who would believe her? Who would even care? _Oh gods, _she prayed in desperation_, please don't let it start all over again!_

Even worse, if Rohan came after her again, she wasn't sure she would be able to prevent hot-headed, protective Damon from trying to kill him this time. She had no intention of allowing her friend to throw away his promising career and possibly his life on her behalf. Her own life was enough of a mess without destroying his too.

"Tejana! Where are you?" came Borusa's impatient voice as he majestically retraced his steps towards her. "If you are going to be my personal assistant, you need to learn to keep up. There can be no dilly-dallying." The Cardinal gave Rohan a disparaging glance. "And I'll thank you not to detain my staff while they are in the midst of official duties, Councillor."

"Yes, Cardinal. My apologies, Sir," Rohan replied, giving Borusa a polite bow. "Please excuse me."

With a last leer at Tejana, he disappeared into the crowd. Borusa watched him go, a slight frown between his brows.

"Is everything all right, child?" he asked, giving her a keen look.

Sometimes Tejana couldn't help wondering how much those sharp eyes saw and understood, things that were never reflected in Borusa's imperturbable politician's face. She nodded and gave him a small curtsey, indescribably grateful to be free of Rohan's oppressive presence, at least for now. "Yes, Cardinal. Forgive me for neglecting my duties."

"As long as it doesn't happen again," he replied crisply. "Now, I wish to have a private discussion with Cardinal Arkendo before the President arrives. Please ensure we are not disturbed."

"Yes, Sir," she said.

Borusa walked over to another Time Lord also dressed in the deep, rich purple of a Cardinal and drew him aside for a whispered conversation. _More political intrigue_, Tejana thought cynically. Borusa had always been kind to her in his own lofty, superior way, unlike many of the other older Time Lords, who had treated her with disdainful contempt after the Doctor's exile to Earth . She suspected it was because Borusa had harboured a soft spot for her father back in his Academy days. She wished she could bring herself to confide in him about Rohan, but somehow – without knowing why - she just couldn't trust him enough.

As instructed, she hovered just out of earshot of the two Cardinals, courteously forestalling anyone who looked like they might be about to interrupt their conversation. It was not an easy task, for Borusa was a very influential member of the High Council and there were any number of people determined to bend his ear in an attempt to curry favour. Before long, a tall man sidled up to her, moving carefully and almost furtively. Tejana groaned inwardly. She was getting sick of intercepting people. They always got so grumpy, as if it was her fault Borusa wouldn't speak to them. This particular man was dressed in traditional Prydonian robes, complete with the orange high collar and skull cap decorated with the figure-of-eight symbol of Rassilon. She had never seen him before. Oddly, his robes seemed slightly too short for him and his cap appeared to be jammed down haphazardly over a wild mop of curly brown hair.

He gave her a wide, toothy grin. "Hello there. Nice day for it, isn't it?"

Tejana was just about to give him the usual spiel about contacting Borusa's office to make an appointment when she glanced up and happened to meet his twinkling blue eyes. All at once, the world stood still, everything retreating to a distance, both her hearts nearly stopping with the shock of instant recognition.

"Doctor!"


	3. Chapter 3

**_Author's Note: Hi again! Yes, it's me, with yet another update. For once, I've pretty much finished this one already before I began posting, hence the fast updates!_**

**_Thanks so much to the people who reviewed the last chapter_ - _maybe I'm not doing so badly on this one after all. Your encouragement means a lot, no joke.  
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_**So, big wave to: Romana-II, mericat, padmay97, Bad Dog No Biscuit, Catelly (x 2), MayFairy, xxTeam-Masterxx, tree1138 and RiverBleu.**  
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><p><strong>CHAPTER THREE<strong>

Tejana stared at at her father in incredulous delight, trying to convince herself that it was true. He hadn't forgotten about her - he had come back for her. A dizzying, blinding cocktail of joy and relief raced exultantly through her veins. Oh gods, she didn't have to be afraid of Rohan any more. She didn't have to try so hard to become something she wasn't, always a square peg in a round hole, stuck forever on this suffocating, stultifying planet. She no longer had to cry herself to sleep at night. At long, long last, she would be _free_!

"Oh, Doctor!" she cried, tears springing to her eyes. "I'm so glad to see you!"

"Sssssh," he hushed, bending close to her. "Not so loud. The Chancellery Guard are looking for me. I'm not supposed to be here."

"But...what...how...?"

"I received a psychic summons to return to Gallifrey," he answered, ducking his head to hide his face as some of the guards marched briskly past. "From someone on the High Council. As a Time Lord, I had no choice but to obey."

"A summons," Tejana echoed flatly, all her elation seeping away as if it had never been, a stab of anguish tearing at her hearts as the truth suddenly became clear to her. He was not here for her after all. He was here because he had been forced to return by a High Council summons and for no other reason. A heavy sense of inevitability descended on her like a dark cloud. Nothing had changed. She was just as incidental to him as she had always been. For a brief moment, the eviscerating pain was so great that she almost forgot how to breathe.

"Yes. And I think the life of the Lord President is in danger," the Doctor continued gravely, peering intently around the room, completely oblivious to the staggering emotional blow he had just dealt his daughter. "Somebody here is planning to assassinate him."

For one wild, bitter second, Tejana felt hysterical laughter welling up in her throat. _A presidential assassination? _ _Here on Gallifrey? _ Such a thing was absolutely unheard of. And yet the explanation was so typical of her father. He was always on some sort of crusade, always on a mission, always trying to save the Universe, piece by so-important-bloody-piece. His mind was always on the bigger picture and he never, ever stopped to see what was right under his nose.

Sudden, unexpected anger exploded inside her, all her hopes and dreams crumbling into dush and ash around her. All she wanted to do was to tell him to get out and never come back. She never, _ever _wanted to see him again. But before she could say anything, they were interrupted by the arrival of an irate Runcible.

"Young woman," the newscaster said arrogantly. "I understand you are Lord Borusa's new personal assistant. I'll have you know that_ I _am Runcible, the Chief Commentator for Public Register Video. It is of the utmost importance that I speak to the Cardinal. The public have a right to know how their government is being conducted."

The Doctor grinned. "Runcible, my dear chap! How nice to see you!"

"What?" Runcible said irritably, annoyed at being halted in mid-tirade. "Oh, I don't believe we've..." Then his eyes narrowed in dislike as he finally recognised the Doctor as one of the classmates that had teased him so mercilessly during his years at the Academy. "Oh, I say! You're Theta Sigma, aren't you? Weren't you expelled or something? Some sort of scandal?"

"Oh, it's all been forgotten about now, old boy," the Doctor responded airily.

Runcible pursed his thin lips disapprovingly. "Oh, really? Well, where've you been all these years?"

"Oh, here and there, you know. Round and about."

Again, the Chancellery Guard marched past, in greater force this time, clearly searching for someone. Quickly, the Doctor turned his back on them and pretended to examine his knee.

Runcible scowled in confusion at this strange behaviour, obviously suspecting that the Doctor was somehow making fun of him. "Is there something the matter?"

"Oh no," the Doctor replied, straightening up and giving him another cheerful grin. "Just a twinge in the knee."

"Well, if you will lead such a rackety life," the little reporter sniffed. Then, looking more closely at the Doctor, he asked, "I say, have you had a facelift?"

"Several," the Doctor said wryly.

Runcible raised his eyebrows superciliously. "Yes, well, nice to see you again, but I must get on. I'm trying to get an interview with Cardinal Borusa for the Public Register Video. Unfortunately, this young woman persists in obstructing me."

"This _young woman _is my daughter," the Doctor told him, a faint but distinct hint of censure suddenly present in his voice. "Her name is Tejana."

The reporter blanched a little at his tone, reluctant to provoke any sort of confrontation with his old classmate. For all his apparent amiability, there was something tense and edgy about the Doctor. And the way he kept looking around so furtively...in Runcible's opinion, the man was clearly unhinged. Probably best not to antagonise him. Who knew what he might do?

"Charmed, I'm sure," he said ingratiatingly, nodding at Tejana.

Tejana nodded back without speaking, desperately wishing he would just go away, so she could finish her discussion with her father, once and for all.

"Carry on then, Runcible!" the Doctor said, his expression jovial once more. "You're doing a splendid job, if I may say so."

Despite his wariness, Runcible visibly swelled with self-importance. "Oh, do you think so?"

"Oh, it's a gift!" the Doctor replied, his blue eyes dancing. "Somehow you have a wonderful way of making the whole thing come_ alive_!"

"Oh, that's very nice of you!"

At that moment, the rich, rolling sounds of a pipe organ swelled throughout the room.

"That'll be the President now," Runcible said. "He's just arrived at the Panopticon."

Tejana felt the Doctor stiffen, his eyes immediately darting to the highest levels of the chamber. The other Time Lords were beginning to gather around in anticipation of the President's arrival, including Cardinal Borusa.

"Doctor, are you sure you're all right?" she whispered, the anxious anticipation on his face worrying her, in spite of her anger.

"What? Oh...yes."

"Come _on_, you stupid yoik!" Runcible muttered crossly.

"_What?_" the Doctor said again, his sharp gaze dropping to bore into the little reporter.

"I should be getting a signal from my camera technician up there," Runcible grumbled, indicating one of the upper galleries as he twiddled with his earpiece.

The Doctor's eyes followed the direction of the reporter's pointing finger and his face went pale. "_No!_" he shouted. Spinning around, he began to barge his barge through the assembled Time Lords, careless of any damage he caused, ruthlessly shoving his way through to the stairs.

Startled, unsure whether or not to follow, Tejana's gaze also shot up to the balcony, but she could see nothing unusual. _What the hell was he doing? What was going on?_

The Doctor had gained the stairs by now, despite the indignant protests of those he cannoned into. His formal Prydonian collar had fallen off in the melee and had been trampled and crushed under the feet of the crowd.

"Let me go!" he yelled, throwing off the hands that tried to restrain him. "Let me go!"

With that, he was gone, disappearing into the upper regions of the Panopticon, hotly pursued by several of the Chancellery Guard. Runcible gave a small smirk, pleased with his own keen perception. After all, he had been right – the Doctor evidently _was _insane. Nonetheless he, Runcible, still had an important job to do. His public were waiting to hear from him.

"Just a little disturbance here in the Panopticon, as the President starts to ascend," he said as he faced the camera once more. "Already the High Council, led by Chancellor Goth, are moving forward to greet His Supremacy."

The dramatic organ music surged again, louder than ever, as one of the emerald wall panels of the Panopticon began to lower, forming into a set of stairs. Ceremoniously, the elderly Lord President began to descend the steps to the dais, followed at a discreet distance by the Gold Usher. His Supremacy was attired magnificently in his cream robes of office, the gleaming Rod of Rassilon in his hand, the golden Sash of Rassilon resplendent around his neck. The music was deafening now, as the President raised his hand benevolently, graciously accepting the greetings of the High Council.

Tejana had become caught up in the crowd surging towards the dais. Trying to stand her ground, she glanced around wildly, trying to see where the Doctor had gone. Then, a movement in the upper gallery caught her eye. Looking up, she saw her father leaning over the railing. To her complete and absolute horror, she realised he was holding a stasar rifle and it was aimed directly at the Lord President.

"Doctor!" she screamed. "No!"

But it was too late. Before she could do anything, she saw his finger tighten on the trigger. There was a blinding flash of light and a stasar blast struck the President violently in the chest, throwing him to the floor and killing him instantly.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: Hello, I'm back again. Big, big thanks to the people who reviewed yesterday's chapter - xxTeam-Masterxx, Romana-II, padmay97, Riverbleu, MayFairy, Bad Dog No Biscuit, Aietradaea (x 3), Catelly, Astra68 and mericat.**

**I know it's a really busy time of year for people at the moment, with exams and such, so I really appreciate the lovely people who take the time to make my day by reading and reviewing!**

**Here's the next bit...**

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><p><strong>CHAPTER FOUR<strong>

"There has to be a mistake, Damon," Tejana said in a low voice, her head in her hands. "There just has to be."

Her delicate face was drawn and white, with dark, shadowy circles etched under her eyes, ample evidence of the sleepless night she had passed. Awkwardly, Damon put his arm around her and drew her close to the warmth of his side. "But, Tejana...you said you saw him do it."

"I'm not sure what I saw! There were so many people milling around, so much confusion. All I know is, he would never do anything like that. There must be some other explanation!"

It was the morning after the disastrous Presidential Resignation Ceremony and they were seated by themselves at a table in the Refectory, the communal area where the students of the Academy gathered to eat their meals. The large room was currently pretty much deserted, since it was still very early.

"What happened after that?" Damon asked. He was still trying to get his head around the fact that the Doctor had returned to Gallifrey at all, let alone the fact that he had apparently assassinated the Lord President in cold blood.

"The Chancellery Guard arrested him and dragged him away to a detention cell," Tejana replied miserably. "Chancellor Goth wants to hold a trial right away, before the election of the new President."

"What exactly did the Doctor say to you?"

She shrugged hopelessly. "Not a lot. We didn't get a chance to talk much before Runcible came and interrupted us. All he said was that he was concerned that the Lord President's life was in danger. So why after that would he turn around and shoot the President himself? It just doesn't make sense!"

"And what would he have to gain by shooting an outgoing President anyway?" Damon mused. "What would _anyone_ have to gain? It's not as though the succession is in question at all. Everyone knows Chancellor Goth will be the next to take office."

"Exactly!" Tejana agreed. "Besides, there couldn't be anyone less interested in Gallifreyan politics than the Doctor. He spends his entire life roaming around the Universe, as far away from Gallifrey as possible. Why would he care who was running the planet?"

Damon looked at her closely, not missing the undertone of pain and bitterness in her voice. Reaching out, he gently stroked the long, white-blonde hair back from her face, his dark eyes tender and compassionate. "You weren't the reason he came back, were you ?"

She gave him a brittle, tremulous smile. "No. I don't think he even gave me a second thought. He came back because he received a summons from the High Council that even he couldn't ignore."

"Tejana..." Damon began softly.

"I have to see him," she cut in abruptly, not wanting to hear what she knew her friend was going to say. "If I go and see Cardinal Borusa, maybe he can pull some strings for me. There has to be some way to sort this all out."

"Oh, Tejana, why do you keep doing this?" Damon asked in concern, his hands tightening on her shoulders. "Why do you keep on letting him hurt you, over and over again?"

She stared up at him, tears sparkling on her lashes. "He's my father, Damon, and he's in trouble," she responded in a husky voice. "I can't turn my back on him. What other choice do I have?"

With that, she pulled away from him and got to her feet. "If I go now, maybe I can catch Cardinal Borusa before breakfast."

However, she had hardly taken three steps away from the table when she realised that her way was blocked by three very solid bodies.

"Going somewhere, Lungbarrow?" a nasty voice inquired.

The speaker was a tall, thin arrogant looking boy with long blonde hair falling over his cold green eyes.

"Tabor," she gritted out.

Tabor was in her class at the Academy. He was heir to the House of Brightshore, one of the richest and most powerful families on Gallifrey. He was also a vicious bully who had taken great delight in making life miserable for Damon and Tejana ever since they had first started their schooling. As usual, he was flanked by his two favourite cronies, Xandar and Morvin.

Behind her, she sensed Damon exploding furiously to his feet, ready as always to defend her. "Don't you_ touch_ her, you son of a bitch!"

Tabor nodded coolly to his two companions. "Hold him!" Instantly, Xandar and Morvin closed in on Damon, twisting his arms painfully behind his back and holding him immobile, despite his struggles.

"I heard some very interesting news this morning, Lungbarrow," Tabor sneered, ignoring Damon completely. "It seems you're not the only one in your family to be graduating. From what I've heard, your precious father has just graduated from criminal malfeasance to murder. And the murder of the Lord President, no less. Now that's really something!"

"Get out of my way, Tabor, " she snarled.

"They're going to execute him, you know," the boy said maliciously. "They're already preparing the vaporisation chamber. And then what will happen to you? Even Cardinal Borusa won't want to protect you, the daughter of an executed murderer. I bet you're sorry now you didn't take the chance to marry me when you could."

"I'd rather kill myself than marry you," she spat. "Now or ever!"

Laughing, Tabor reached out and grabbed her painfully by the arm, purposely digging his fingers into her skin. "Maybe...if you're very nice to me...I could find a place for you at my estate, once you become destitute and homeless. As a servant, of course. I'm sure I could find a use for that insolent little mouth of yours. I think I'd like that."

Tejana felt white rage boiling through her veins. She already had so much fear inside her right now – fear of Councillor Rohan, fear for her father's life, fear for her own future...but she would be damned if she would be afraid of this conceited little jerk.

"Let go of me," she said, her voice low and threatening. "Now."

"Or what?" he scoffed. "You'll shoot me with a stasar rifle?"

"No," she responded coldly. "Or I'll do _this_!"

Drawing back her fist, she punched him in the face as hard as she could. There was an audible crack as the fragile bone in his nose shattered under the force of the blow. He staggered backwards in shock, gouts of crimson blood already beginning to pour from his nostrils. Xandar and Morvin stood stunned, gaping disbelievingly at their fallen leader. Taking advantage of their momentary inattention, Damon twisted around and managed to break free. Sprinting forward, he grabbed Tejana's arm and pulled her with him, running with her towards the door as fast as he could.

"I'll get you!" Tabor howled after them, his voice muffled by his own blood. "_Both_ of you, if it's the last thing I ever do!"

"Wow!" Damon gasped as they ran across the quadrangle outside. "That was spectacular! Where did you learn to hit like that?"

"Jamie McCrimmon taught me, when I was travelling with the Doctor," Tejana replied, somewhat shakily. Now that the first incredible rush of adrenaline had worn off, she was starting to feel a little shocked at her own unaccustomed violence. "He said it was called 'boxing' on Earth."

"Well, whatever it was, it was beautiful!" Damon said in satisfaction. "And Tabor definitely had it coming!"

"Maybe," she replied grimly, rubbing gingerly at her bruised knuckles. "But he was right about one thing. If I can't do something to help the Doctor soon, we're both going to be in a whole world of trouble."

* * *

><p>"No," Cardinal Borusa said decisively. "Absolutely not."<p>

"But Sir..."

"Tejana, I'm not sure you understand the gravity of the situation. Your father is under arrest for both murder and high treason. There is no greater crime on Gallifrey. I cannot allow you to see him."

"I'm fully aware of that, Your Eminence," she replied, trying to keep her voice as respectful as possible. She desperately needed the Cardinal on her side. All would be lost if she angered him.

She was standing in his sumptuous study at the very top of the Capitol. The Cardinal was seated behind his enormous, carved wooden desk, his fingers steepled before him as he surveyed her expressionlessly. The glass doors behind him were opened wide on to his private rooftop garden and Tejana could smell the exotic scent of schlenk blossom wafting through the air. In the distance, through the crystal bubble of the Great Dome, she could see the Mountains of Solace and Solitude, silhouetted against the orange sky in a breathtaking panorama. The walls of the study were covered with expensive artworks and elegant shelves containing rare first edition books. The carpet beneath Tejana's feet was woven of the finest silk. There was no mistaking the fact that Lord Borusa liked his comforts.

"Indeed?" he responded frostily. "And are you aware that Chancellor Goth has ordered the Doctor's trial to be held this morning?"

"This morning?" she quavered.

"Yes. Not only that, but you have been named as a witness for the prosecution."

At that, Tejana's eyes flared angrily, her fists clenched by her side. "No! I won't do it."

"You have no choice, child," Borusa told her. "You were present at the incident. You are required by law to tell the truth about what you saw."

"But I'm not sure what I saw! Surely the Castellan will instigate some sort of investigation...Lord Cardinal, there must have been some sort of mistake. You know the Doctor, you know he would never kill anyone!" she cried, taking a pleading step towards him. "They're going to execute him for something he didn't do!"

"I knew your father a long time ago, Tejana. He has been absent from Gallifrey for many years. I no longer know what he may be capable of," Borusa corrected sternly. "He is an embarrassment to the High Council and to the Prydonian Chapter in particular. It is, as you know, custom for an incoming President to pardon all political prisoners – what choice will he make? Either to pardon the murderer of his predecessor or to break with custom altogether. Neither alternative is politically acceptable. This is why Chancellor Goth wishes the matter to be dealt with prior to the election. And I cannot be seen to be involved."

"But it isn't fair!" she protested hotly. "_And_ it's unconstitutional!"

Borusa hesitated, a thoughtful look passing over his smooth face at her words. "As I said, child, I cannot be seen to oppose the will of Chancellor Goth. However, on reflection, perhaps...as you are the daughter of the accused...one last visit is not too much to ask."

Tejana closed her eyes in relief. "Oh, thank you, Your Eminence."

With a graceful curtsey, she hurriedly turned to leave the room, knowing she had very little time before the trial began.

"I was your father's tutor in Constitutional Studies when he attended the Academy," Borusa remarked with apparent irrelevance, just as she reached the door. "I remember he had particular difficulty with Article Seventeen."

"Article Seventeen?" Tejana echoed blankly. She had no idea what he was talking about. Like TARDIS Engineering, Constitutional Studies had hardly been one of her strong points.

"Yes," the Cardinal said with a pointed glance. "Perhaps you should remind him of that when you see him. Good day, Tejana."


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note: Hi! Thanks to the people who reviewed the last chapter -** **MayFairy, Romana-II, Aietradaea, Catelly, crazychika495, Astra68 and Bad Dog No Biscuit.** ** You are all terrific!**

**Bit more canon in this chapter (yay, canon!) Hope you like...fingers crossed...***hides in corner nervously***  
><strong>

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><p><strong>CHAPTER FIVE<strong>

"This way, Lady Tejana."

"Thank you, Castellan."

Diffidently, fighting her claustrophobia with every step she took, Tejana followed Castellan Spandrell into the depths of the Citadel, down into the holding cell complex beneath the Capitol. The Castellan was a dour, practical man, dressed in sober robes of a dark magenta hue. In keeping with his senior position on the High Council, he very rarely smiled. As head of the Chancellery Guard, he was responsible for both civil order and general security on Gallifrey, duties he took extremely seriously. His face was graver than ever today, the fact that a President of Gallifrey had been assassinated on his watch weighing heavily on him. As requested by Cardinal Borusa, he expertly led Tejana through a virtual maze of grey corridors, prison chambers and interrogation rooms that most Time Lords never saw. To Tejana, however, the cloistered dungeons were very familiar. After the Doctor had been exiled to Earth, this had been the place that formed her world for weeks on end - shut away from daylight, faint from lack of food, the only movement permitted to her being the long daily walk between her miserable cell and the interrogation room where Councillor Rohan had regularly beaten and abused her. Gritting her teeth, Tejana fixed her eyes on the Castellan's back and silently recited nursery rhymes in her head as she walked, over and over again, resolutely using the comforting, childish words to shut out the horrifying memories that swirled around her.

At last, just as she thought she could bear it no longer, they came to the Doctor's high-security cell. It was precariously suspended above a bottomless void and was accessible only by a retractable walkway that passed through a high-tech weapons detector. Inside the cell, the Doctor was chained with his hands above his head. As Tejana and Castellan Spandrell stepped on to the walkway, they saw that Commander Hilred, a member of the Chancellery Guard, was busy torturing him with a taser device.

"You will confess, Doctor!"

"All right!" the Doctor groaned. "All right, I'll confess."

"Very wise," Hilred said complacently.

"I confess that you're a bigger idiot than I thought you were!" the Doctor grinned mockingly.

Hilred's face went red with anger and he applied the device again, making the Doctor scream in pain.

"There are fifteen intensity levels in this device, Doctor. At the moment, you're only experiencing Level Nine," the Commander sneered. "Much easier to talk."

"I've got nothing to say," the Doctor gritted out, sweat pouring from his face.

Hilred smirked, turning the dial on the device up even higher. "Oh, you'll think of something...soon."

"Tweedledum!" the Doctor snarled, glaring at Hilred and turning the name into an insult.

"Stop it!" Tejana cried, pushing past Spandrell and running forward into the room. "Castellan, please, make him stop!"

"Turn it off!" the Castellan ordered.

Hilred scowled, but lowered the weapon obediently.

"Tweedledee!" the Doctor said insolently, looking directly at the Castellan this time.

"I must apologise for my subordinate," Spandrell replied. "He allows his enthusiasm to run away with him."

"I see. The hot and cold technique," the Doctor remarked, unimpressed. "Tejana, what are you doing here?"

"I had to see you," she told him. "Cardinal Borusa granted me special permission."

"You have ten minutes, that is all," Spandrell said. "Then it will be time for me to escort you to your trial, Doctor."

With that, he and Hilred departed, the door sliding firmly closed behind them. The Doctor and Tejana were left alone in a silence that was suddenly uncomfortable, gazing at each other like the strangers they now were, the air between them heavy with things unsaid. It was odd – after begging Borusa so desperately to see him, faced with his reality Tejana suddenly found the words sticking her throat, unsure what she should say.

"So Borusa's a Cardinal these days, is he?" the Doctor began awkwardly. "I'm surprised you were even able to get an audience with him."

"The Cardinal has been very kind," Tejana said in a stiff voice. "I'm a member of his staff – his new personal assistant, actually."

The Doctor stared at her in astonishment. "What?" he exclaimed. "Personal schmersonal! What about finishing your schooling at the Academy?"

"I _have_ finished."

"Nonsense! You're not old enough. You're still a child."

"I graduate in three weeks. And I haven't been a child for a long time, Doctor."

"Three weeks until graduation?" he frowned. "Are you sure? I can't have been gone for that long, surely!"

"Well, it's not something I'd be likely to get confused about, is it?" she responded tartly. She was willing to do all she could to help him avoid the death penalty, but that was as far as it went. She was determined not to listen to any excuses he might make for not returning for her...if he even bothered to make any. "Anyway, that's neither here nor there. We're running out of time. Chancellor Goth is determined to see you executed. They're already preparing the vaporisation chamber. You've only got about three hours to live!"

"You don't think I did it, do you, Tejana?" the Doctor asked, watching her face steadily.

For a moment, she hesitated, remembering the damning scene she had witnessed in the Panopticon the night before. The anger was still strong in her hearts and, at first, she was tempted to lash out by asking how the hell she was supposed to know anything about him, when it was so long since she had seen him. But in the end, she couldn't do it - her old unquestioning belief and trust in her father was far too ingrained. "No, I don't. I don't think you could ever do something like that. But it's not me you have to convince. It's Castellan Spandrell."

"The man's an idiot! What possible motive could I have for assassinating a retiring President?"

"At first, I think he put it down to a personal grudge."

"I never met the President!"

"They know that now. They pulled your biog from The Matrix."

"And they still think I did it?" the Doctor said in disgust. "You do realise I've been framed, don't you?"

Tejana's forehead wrinkled in bewilderment at the peculiar assertion. As far as she knew, only paintings got framed, when they were hung on a wall. She wasn't quite sure why the Doctor thought that had happened to him or how it could possibly be relevant to his case. "Framed?"

"Yes, framed. It's an Earth expression. It means that someone has gone to a great deal of trouble to get me into this mess."

"Oh," she replied, filing the information away in her mind for future reference. Humans had lots of strange expressions and many of them made no sense whatsoever. "But who would do that?"

"I don't know. That's what we need to find out."

"When I first saw you in the Panopticon last night, you told me you thought the President's life was in danger," she said thoughtfully. "How did you know?"

"Well, this is the bit you won't believe. People _talk_ about a premonition of tragedy, but I actually saw it happening. I was in the TARDIS, travelling in the Vortex, just after I'd heard the Panopticon summons. I saw the President die as vividly and as clearly as I see this room now. When I arrived on Gallifrey, I left the Castellan a note in the TARDIS, warning him, which presumably he did nothing about."

His daughter gazed at him, her dark eyes shadowed with worry. "Precognitive vision? But that's impossible."

"I know," he answered gloomily. "And yet it happened."

"So what can we do?"

"Firstly, we have to buy ourselves some more time. Somehow, we have to think of a way to delay this trial."

Suddenly, something clicked in her mind. "Wait," she said excitedly. "When I saw Cardinal Borusa this morning, he said something odd. He said that when he tutored you in Constitutional Studies at the Academy, you always had trouble with Article Seventeen and that I should remind you of that."

A slow grin spread across the Doctor's face. "Did he now? How very interesting."

* * *

><p>The Doctor's trial was not nearly impressive as Tejana had anticipated. Everything on Gallifrey was normally conducted with enormous pomp and ceremony. Given the severity of the crimes with which her father had been charged, she had expected an immensely formal and solemn hearing before a huge audience. Instead, a small, hastily-convened tribunal had gathered in secret on the floor of the Panopticon, comprising only the members of the Inner Circle of the High Council, with Chancellor Goth sitting as sole judge. A "kangaroo court", as the Doctor described it, which he explained to Tejana was another colourful Earth expression which meant a sham legal proceeding with a predetermined outcome.<p>

Hilred was presently standing before Goth's judicial chair, giving his evidence in his usual affected, self-important manner.

"The prisoner eluded us at that time. Later, I went with Castellan Spandrell to the Capitol museum, where the TT Capsule had been transferred. The erogen tracer immediately became active. I concluded the prisoner must have been in the vicinity sometime previously."

The Doctor was seated nearby at a glass-topped table, a pad of paper before him, on which he was apparently taking copious notes as the Commander spoke. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Tejana couldn't help smiling in amusement. From her seat directly behind him, she was able to clearly see that, far from preparing an intricate legal defence, he was actually drawing an accurate and exaggerated caricature of the self-admiring Hilred.

Then Runcible took the stand. "He seemed nervous...well, apprehensive," the little newscaster said. "He was looking around all the time that we were talking. Then, just before the President appeared, he turned and started to run across the Panopticon. After that, I thought he said..."

On and on he droned, every complacent word out of his mouth forming another nail in the Doctor's coffin. Tejana watched her father's hands move rapidly as he sketched. His caricature of Runcible was even funnier then the one he had drawn of Hilred, but Tejana was no longer smiling. She could see Chancellor Goth nodding gravely, as if all the evidence he was hearing merely confirmed what he already knew. She knew instinctively that the Doctor's danger was mounting by the second.

The next witness was an elderly Time Lord in old-fashioned Prydonian robes. "He pushed past me in a loutish and unmannerly way!" he stated indignantly. "Never in all my years of attendance at the Panopticon have I..."

Chancellor Goth gave an audible sigh. "If you could confine yourself to this incident, Sir. What happened next?"

"Well," the old man replied. "I caught him by the arm to remonstrate with him and he shouted, 'Let me go! They'll kill him!'"

"Are you quite sure of that?" Goth asked, staring intently at the witness.

"What?" the Time Lord responded querulously.

"Are you perhaps getting a little hard of hearing these days?"

"Well...er...at my age, one can expect these things. I've be having a little trouble with my hip lately..."

"Let me put it to you," Goth suggested smoothly. "Could the accused have said, 'Let me go, _I_ will kill him'?"

Horrified, Tejana's eyes shot to the Doctor. He was supposedly conducting his own defence, in the absence of any official representation. Goth was clearly leading the witness, manipulating the evidence to suit his preconceived version of events. Surely the Doctor would object! But her father merely smiled and said nothing, his pen busily shading and cross-hatching his comical sketch of the old Time Lord's skull-cap.

"Well..." the witness mumbled, confused now. "Well, yes, I suppose it is possible. He could have said that."

Then it was Tejana's turn to face the questioning. Goth looked at her sternly. "Now, Lady Tejana, after the Doctor turned to run across the Panopticon, pushing through the crowd, what did you see?"

"I...I'm not sure..." she prevaricated, twisting her hands tightly together, desperate not to say anything that would further incriminate her father.

"May I remind you, Lady Tejana, this is an official Gallifreyan legal proceeding," Goth said portentously. "You have a sacred duty to tell the truth."

The Doctor gazed at her and nodded encouragingly. Not knowing what else to do, she said, "The President came down the stairs into the Panopticon. I saw a movement in the upper gallery. I looked up and saw the Doctor."

"Was he holding anything?" Goth asked.

"Yes. A stasar rifle."

"Ah, a stasar rifle," the Chancellor nodded. "And then what happened?"

"I saw him shoot a bolt down into the Panopticon," Tejana answered dully. "The President was struck and fell down dead."

"Thank you, Lady Tejana," Goth said, waving his hand dismissively. "That is all. You may resume your seat."

With that, the Chancellor flicked a compelling glance up at Cardinal Borusa, who was standing beside his chair. Then he shifted his gaze back to the Doctor. "Has the accused anything to say before sentence is pronounced?"

Tejana held her breath in tension, her hands clenched tightly together, her fingernails leaving tiny, half-moon shaped dints in her skin. She knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Goth was just about to order the Doctor's execution. She could only pray that her father had some sort of ace up his sleeve, otherwise it was all over.

"Yes," the Doctor said ominously, rising to his feet. "Article Seventeen."

Unsure what was happening, Tejana glanced at Cardinal Borusa. A faint smile flickered across the Cardinal's face, before disappearing as soon as it had come, leaving the his expression as inscrutable as ever.

"Article Seventeen?" Goth echoed in an incredulous tone.

"I offer myself as a candidate for the Presidency," the Doctor announced, unperturbed by the outraged mutters arising from the members of the High Council.

"The application is frivolous!" Goth spat.

"No, Sir!" the Doctor exclaimed, stepping forward, only to be immediately restrained by two of the Chancellery Guard. Pulling his arms free with a gesture of contempt, he continued in a commanding voice, "I invoke Article Seventeen of the Constitution, which is a guarantee of liberty and says, in part, that no candidate for office shall in any way be debarred or restrained from presenting his claim!"

"The guarantee of liberty does not extend to murderers!" Goth said coldly.

But at that moment, Borusa took the opportunity to lean down and speak quietly yet firmly into his ear. "As a jurist, Chancellor, I must point out that until the accused is pronounced guilty, he is protected by Article Seventeen."

"He is abusing a technicality!"

"No, Sir!" the Doctor interjected. "I am claiming a legal right!"

Borusa straightened and folded his hands placidly before him. "Chancellor, this court must be adjourned until the election is over."

Goth paused, impotent fury plainly written across his face. Then, realising he had been deftly manoeuvred into a corner, he growled, "Very well. But do not think you will escape justice. Castellan Spandrell?"

"Sir?"

"See that the accused has no opportunity to leave the Capitol."

"Yes, Sir."

With that, Goth rose majestically to his feet and swept grandly from the room, followed by the other members of the High Council. Catching Borusa's eye as he left, Tejana gave the Cardinal a small, almost imperceptible curtsey of gratitude. He gave her a slight nod of acknowledgement and then disappeared out the door with the others, leaving her alone with the Doctor, Hilred and Castellan Spandrell.

Utter relief flooded through her hearts. Thank the gods – and Cardinal Borusa - her father was safe, at least for now.

"Oh, Doctor, you did it!" she cried.

He grinned at her cheerfully. "Good old Article Seventeen, eh? Who'd have thought Borusa's tedious class in Constitutional Studies would ever come in handy?"

"Your reprieve is for forty-eight hours only, Doctor," Spandrell warned.

The Doctor glared at him. "Well, it's better than three!"

"What are you going to do?" the Castellan inquired.

"Suppose..." the Doctor mused. "Suppose I could convince _you_ I didn't do it?"

Spandrell raised his eyebrows sceptically. "All right then. Convince me."


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note:** ** Thanks to the people who reviewed yesterday's chapter - I'm so very pleased you all seem to think I'm doing OK, it's a big relief when I was so nervous about it! So big hugs for: MayFairy, Romana-II, mericat and tree1138. **

**Sorry I'm rushing through posting this and not giving people much time to R&R, but I really need to finish it, so I can get back to writing "The Master's Rose." The Master is calling me very loudly, LOL!**

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><p><strong>CHAPTER SIX<strong>

The Doctor and Tejana stood in the corridor outside the entrance to the Panopticon. The Doctor was turning the stasar rifle over in his hands and examining it carefully. Commander Hilred watched both of them suspiciously, his own weapon held at the ready, overtly alert for any sudden escape attempts.

"Don't get any ambitious ideas," Spandrell advised the Doctor in a cautionary voice.

"I just wanted to check it was the same stasar," the Doctor replied, handing the rifle to the Castellan. "You see that symbol at the end of the corridor?"

Spandrell glanced up at the ornately carved Symbol of Rassilon hanging on the wall some distance away. "What about it?"

"You try and hit it," the Doctor told him.

"What?"

"Go on. You try and hit it."

Spandrell scowled. "Just the kind of hooliganism we're always running the Shabogans in for," he commented acidly. Nevertheless, he raised the weapon to his shoulder, trained it on the decorative symbol and pulled the trigger, just as he had been asked. There was a loud, explosive noise and a flash of bright light as the stasar beam arced down the corridor, missing the intended target by a wide margin.

"Miles away!" Spandrell said in surprise.

Tejana's eyes brightened as she suddenly understood what her father was trying to prove. She knew the Castellan was an expert marksman – it was a requirement of his position in charge of the Chancellery Guard. There was only one possible reason he could have missed such an easy shot.

"The sights are out!" she exclaimed in delight. "The Doctor couldn't have hit the President if he tried!"

"No," the Doctor agreed. "And equally, I couldn't hit the assassin. That's _why_ they were fixed."

"The assassin, according to you, being one of the High Council," Spandrell said sourly, passing the stasar rifle back to Commander Hilred for safe-keeping.

The Doctor nodded. "Yes. Yes...he was in the party surrounding the President. I saw him draw a stasar and step forward. I aimed a bolt at him, but at that time I didn't know the sights had been fixed."

"One of the High Council," Spandrell repeated dryly. "It's getting better and better."

"What is?" the Doctor queried.

"Your story. But still a story. Where's the evidence, Doctor?"

"I'll tell you where the evidence is."

Spandrell raised his eyebrows. "Where?"

"In the Public Register Camera. I was standing right beside it."

"Doctor, you may yet end up as President!" the Castellan said with reluctant admiration.

The Doctor grinned widely and winked reassuringly at Tejana.

Spandrell turned briskly to the Commander. "Hilred?"

"Yes, Castellan?"

"Take the Doctor and his daughter to the Panopticon."

"Now, Castellan?"

"Of course now!" Spandrell snapped, throwing his subordinate an irritable glance. And I want Commentator Runcible there too. And wait for me."

Hilred gave him a smart salute, before motioning the Doctor and Tejana to walk ahead of him. "Very good, Castellan."

* * *

><p>The huge chamber of the Panopticon was completely deserted as the Doctor and Tejana entered, followed by Hilred, Castellan Spandrell and Commentator Runcible. Tejana shivered a little. The air seemed colder in here somehow, the dim room almost eerie in its emptiness, their voices echoing up to the vaulted ceiling.<p>

The Doctor leapt up on to the elevated dais where the President had been murdered, studying the scene of the crime with intense concentration. A neat chalk outline had been traced around the spread-eagled body before it was taken away, clearly marking the place where it had fallen.

"It's not really my field, of course," Runcible was saying in a disdainful voice. "The technician would normally be responsible."

"Your technician disappeared," Spandrell reminded him. "Probably scared to death of being involved. All I want to see is the last sequence leading up to the assassination."

Runcible shrugged. "I expect that will be in the last band of the drum."

"Splendid," said the Castellan. "So, perhaps you'd be good enough to fetch it."

"Yes, all right, Castellan," the newscaster said resignedly, giving Spandrell a small bow and turning to climb the stairs to the upper gallery. Tejana watched him go. She couldn't seem to shake the feeling of uneasiness that was gnawing at her. There was a really bad feeling in this room. It was more than just the fact that a terrible murder had been committed here. The small hairs on the back of her neck were standing up, her flesh crawling as if unseen eyes were staring at her.

"About there," the Doctor told Spandrell, indicating the position on the dais where the assassin had stood.

"Then the stasar bolt would have passed over and to the left," the Castellan estimated, calculating the trajectory angles with a practiced eye.

"Yes," the Doctor agreed, climbing further up the stairs to examine the emerald coloured wall, intent on finding the evidence that would exonerate him.

Tejana's gaze was fixed on the lightless upper gallery, where Runcible's camera was situated. Something was wrong, she was sure of it. All at once, she saw the shadows shift, as though a dark figure moved along the balcony, just out of sight.

"Castellan!" she called sharply.

"What is it?"

"I thought I saw a movement up there!"

"Oh, that's just Runcible," Spandrell said dismissively. Then, beckoning to Commander Hilred, he added, "We might have something over here!"

Obediently, Hilred followed his superior up the stairs, where they joined the Doctor in examining the back wall of the Panopticon. Unconvinced by Spandrell's reassurances, Tejana didn't move, her eyes narrowed as she remained staring upwards, still trying to distinguish the mysterious figure through the gloom.

"Here, Castellan!" Hilred announced, indicating a small scorch mark on the lower part of the wall, to the left of the staircase.

The Doctor raised his eyebrows in surprise, as if he had been expecting some more substantial evidence. "Is that it?"

Spandrell shrugged. "Stasers don't do a lot of damage, except to body tissue, of course. Looking at the President, you couldn't tell whether he had been hit in the head or the leg."

Suddenly, a hoarse scream of terror ricocheted around the room, making them all jump.

"_That _was Runcible!" Tejana yelled, picking up her long robes and sprinting for the stairs the little reporter had taken earlier, taking them two at a time. "Runcible! Are you all right?"

Bursting into the narrow upper gallery, she saw him lying on his back on the ground, his face deathly white, his eyes rolling back in his head. Falling to her knees beside him, she seized his wrist. His double pulse was beating strongly, if somewhat erratically, much to her relief. He was still alive.

"Runcible!" she said impatiently. "Wake up!"

He gave a theatrical groan in reply, just as the Doctor arrived, followed closely by Spandrell and Hilred, all of them crowding into the small space behind the camera.

"What happened?" the Doctor demanded, crouching down beside her.

"I think he fainted," she said wryly, giving Runcible a few small, merciless slaps across the face, until he began to stir weakly. "Snap out of it, Runcible, you're all right!"

"Well, at least he's still alive," her father responded.

Spandrell leant over the distressed reporter and shook him roughly by the shoulder. "Come on, man! What happened?"

Runcible gave a hollow moan, his head thrashing hysterically back and forth. "Horrible. Horrible!"

"What are you talking about?" Tejana asked.

"My technician!"

"Where?"

"In the camera!" he gasped.

Standing, Tejana looked curiously inside the camera attached to the railing of the balcony. The barrel was empty, Runcible having obviously removed the recording drum just before she arrived. Stuffed at the very bottom of the cylinder was what appeared to be a tiny, life-like doll, dressed in the same brown and cream robes as Runcible. Cautiously, she put in her hand and drew it out. As soon as she touched it, her entire body recoiled, suddenly understanding her terrible mistake. It was not a doll at all. It was – or had been – flesh and blood. With a stifled cry of horror, she dropped the thing on the ground, sickness rising in her throat as she realised that she had found what was left of Runcible's missing camera technician.

Castellan Spandrell looked down at the miniature figure in astonishment. "Good grief!"

"What...what happened to him?" Tejana choked out, wiping her hands convulsively on her robes.

"Matter condensation," the Doctor told her grimly. "A particularly nasty kind of death."

"No wonder we couldn't find him!" breathed Hilred in an awed voice.

Disbelievingly, Spandrell put out a stubby forefinger and poked gingerly at the tiny body, trying to convince himself it was real. "I've never seen anything like it before."

The Doctor looked at him, his blue eyes bleak. "I have, I'm afraid."

"You have?"

"Yes. It's a technique the Master picked up somewhere on his travels."

Tejana's head shot up in surprise at the familiar name. "The Master? You think the Master's responsible for this? But why would he try to frame you for killing the President? He was your friend!"

"That was a long, long time ago, Tejana," the Doctor answered heavily, a fleeting sadness passing across his face. "Things change. And in this case, they've changed a lot. He's more of a sworn arch-enemy than a friend, these days."

Spandrell looked back and forth between them with an irritable expression, trying to keep up with the conversation. "Who's the Master?"

"He's a fiend. A monster who glories in chaos and destruction," the Doctor replied.

"A Time Lord?"

"Yes, once."

Tejana shook her head in bewilderment. "Castellan, how can you not know about the Master? We _all_ know about the Master! Gallifrey's most infamous son – he's in all the history books!"

Spandrell shrugged blankly. "I've never heard of him."

"What's wrong with everyone all of a sudden? Why don't any of you remember?" she exclaimed in frustration.

"What do you mean, Tejana?" the Doctor asked sharply.

"I was talking to my friend Damon about the Master yesterday. I'm _sure_ Damon knows who he is, we've discussed the Deca before. But yesterday, he didn't remember!" she explained, her forehead creased in worry. "And Damon never forgets anything! Not only that, there's no _way_ the Head of the Chancellery Guard wouldn't know about a renegade Time Lord as notorious as the Master. Something's very wrong here."

The Doctor got to his feet and began pacing up and down, nodding slowly to himself. "You know, a lot of things are becoming clearer."

"Not to me!" Spandrell retorted.

"If the Master _is _here on Gallifrey, then this represents the final challenge," the Doctor mused thoughtfully. "It explains why I was brought here. There are old scores to settle. And this..." He waved his hand to indicate the miniaturised body of the camera-man. "This is just a sort of greetings card."

Spandrell clicked his tongue impatiently. He had no idea what was going on here. But he was an old soldier at heart, used to taking action. In his opinion, sitting around and talking like this was not achieving anything. Crisply, he began to rap out orders.

"Hilred, remove the...body...of the camera technician."

"Yes, Castellan."

"And Runcible, we are still waiting for you to find the last sequence."

With some assistance from Tejana, Runcible managed to climb shakily to his feet, holding tightly to the recording drum from the camera as his shock gradually began to wear off. "It's here, Castellan. You can tell by the numbers."

"I can tell when I see it!" Spandrell snapped. "Take it to Records, I'll have a look at it there."

"Of course, Castellan." Runcible bowed and disappeared down the stairs.

Spandrell turned to the Doctor. "I shall want to know all you can tell me about this Master. I warn you now, if there is some private feud between you, do not try to settle it on Gallifrey."

"It can't be avoided," the Doctor told him. "Like it or not, I'm afraid Gallifrey _is _involved. And I'm afraid things will never be the same again."

The Castellan led the way back down to the floor of the Panopticon. "If he _is _a Time Lord, there'll be a Data Entry on him in the archives."

"Mmmm," the Doctor replied non-commitally. "Perhaps, perhaps."

"What do you mean, perhaps?" Spandrell scoffed. "There's a full biog on every Time Lord."

"Yes," the Doctor said dryly. "And yet, according to Tejana, you've all managed to mysteriously forget he ever existed in the first place."

Before the Castellan could reply, Hilred shouted, "Runcible!"

Looking up, they saw the newscaster staggering towards them across the Panopticon floor. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!" he gasped.

Moving forward quickly, Spandrell managed to catch him as he fell. "What?"

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry..." Runcible said again, his voice fading into a choked whisper.

Slipping through the Castellan's arms, he fell face-down on the floor. There was blood everywhere, staining his robes a bright crimson. Sticking out of his back, looking obscenely out of place, was a large stake.

Runcible the Fatuous had been murdered.


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note: Hi all, daily update time again! Thank you very much to the following people for still staying with this story, much appreciated - MayFairy, Romana-II, The Mouse's Rose, tree1138, xxTeam-Masterxx and Astra68!**

**Here's the next bit...**

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><p><strong>CHAPTER SEVEN<strong>

"Four cold-blooded killings in one day!" Spandrell exclaimed angrily, striding along the corridor towards the Records Room. "None of them even got the chance to regenerate!"

"Flea-bites, Spandrell," the Doctor replied, a trace of irony in his voice. "Mere flea-bites! Things will get a lot worse!"

"Not here in the Time Lord Capitol!" Spandrell sounded as shocked as if the very idea contradicted the entire balance of the Universe.

Then again, Tejana reflected, to the Castellan the situation probably really was just that unthinkable. On insular, peaceful Gallifrey, four murders in one day probably constituted the worst crisis the Chancellery Guard had ever had to deal with.

The Doctor's thoughts seemed to be following along the same lines. "Well, it might rouse some of them from their lethargy!" he said irritably. "They live for centuries and have about as much sense of adventure as dormice!"

The door to the Records Room slid open, revealing a small cubicle packed with computer technology. A myriad of different coloured lights twinkled across the different systems on the walls, while a complex-looking hexagonal console dominated the floor space.

An elderly man in dark grey robes and skull cap was bent studiously over the central control panel. He was assisted by a young man with curly dark hair, dressed in a Prydonian tunic and trousers.

"Damon!" Tejana cried, delighted to see him. Damon grinned and gave her a hug of greeting.

"I take it you two know each other," Spandrell said dryly.

"Of course!" Tejana responded. "Doctor, this is the friend I was telling you about – Damon of the House of Windcrest. Damon, this is my father."

The Doctor shook Damon's hand enthusiastically. "Pleased to meet you, Damon."

"I've heard a lot about you, Doctor," Damon replied, his tone somewhat cool. The young Time Lord was the only person who fully understood what Tejana had gone through since her father left Gallifrey. He was fiercely protective of his impetuous friend and to say that he was unimpressed with the Doctor's track record as a father would be a massive understatement.

Catching the undercurrent of disapproval in the boy's voice, the Doctor shot him an assessing look, but wisely chose not to make any comment.

"And this is my superior, Coordinator Engin," Damon continued, indicating the elderly Time Lord standing beside him. "Coordinator, this is the Doctor and Tejana."

Coordinator Engin gave them each a formal bow of acknowledgement.

"Damon!" Tejana cut in urgently, suddenly noticing that the right side of her friend's face was cut and swollen, already showing signs of what promised to be a spectacular black eye. "What happened to your face?"

"I ran into Xandar," Damon replied lightly. "His fist, to be precise. Several times."

"Oh, Damon!"

He laughed with his usual careless unconcern. "I'm not worried. You should see what Xandar looks like. Between the two of us, I think we've made sure neither he or Tabor will be winning any beauty contests in the near future!"

"Never mind that!" Spandrell said, his voice taut with impatience. "This is a murder inquiry! Coordinator Engin, did you have any luck locating the Master's DE?"

"Nothing, Castellan," Engin answered. "There's no record of any Time Lord ever adopting that title."

"I told you so," the Doctor said softly, sitting down and stretching his long legs out before him. "If there had been a DE on the Master, the first thing he would have done would be to destroy it."

"According to Coordinator Engin, the Time Lord data extracts cannot be withdrawn without the fact being recorded," the Castellan told him. "I thought that yours had been scanned recently, but he assured me it was impossible."

Clearing his throat nervously, Damon stepped forward, shaking his head apologetically. "I'm sorry, Castellan, but that's not quite correct. Anyone with a little criminal know-how could do it. I could do it myself if I wanted to."

"_You_ could?" Engin spluttered, annoyed at being contradicted by his young subordinate. "Don't be ridiculous, boy. It would take more than criminal know-how. These extracts are protected by exitonic circuitry."

"So? Damon's a genius when it comes to exitonics!" Tejana snapped, immediately defensive of her friend.

"Yes, and so is the Master," the Doctor said. "This would be child's play to him. Do you seriously think this stuff is sophisticated? There are worlds out there where this would be considered prehistoric junk!"

Engin's mouth hung open in bewildered affront, shocked into silence by this unprecedented criticism of his beloved technology. This Doctor must be mad. Surely no planet anywhere could be more advanced than Gallifrey? After all, the Time Lords were the oldest and wisest race in the entire Universe!

"What's the Master like on mathematics?" Spandrell asked.

The Doctor got to his feet and walked over to the central console, inspecting the controls closely as he spoke. "He's brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Almost up to my standard. What's this?"

"The APC control," Engin told him.

"APC?"

"Amplified Panatropic Computations."

The Doctor nodded in understanding. "Brain cells."

Engin gave a superior smile at this simplification, eager to show off his detailed knowledge of the technology. "Yes. Trillions of electrochemical cells in a continuous matrix. The cells are the repository of departed Time Lords. At the moment of death, an electrical scan is made of the brain pattern and these millions of impulses are immediately transferred to the..."

Raising his hand imperatively, the Doctor cut him off in mid-spiel. "Shush! I know the theory. What's the function?"

"Well..." Engin said hesitantly. "To monitor life in the Capitol. We use all this combined knowledge and experience to predict future developments."

"Ah. Like the assassination of a President."

Engin gave an embarrassed cough. "Yes, well...for some reason that was _not _foreseen."

"Oh, it was foreseen, all right," the Doctor said grimly. "It was foreseen by me. How very clever! This time he's surpassed himself."

Damon frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"Well, don't you see what he's done?" the Doctor demanded, running his hands through his curly hair. "We Time Lords are telepathic. That's simply a brain storage system. He intercepted its forecast that the President was to be assassinated and beamed it into_ my_ mind."

Tejana shivered. The very idea of someone as evil as the Master being able to infiltrate and manipulate the enormous power of The Matrix...the terrifying implications of what the Doctor had just said were staggering. "Is that even possible?"

"No!" Engin said emphatically.

"Yes!" the Doctor retorted. "Yes, he could do it. You said my DE had been scanned?"

Spandrell nodded. "Yes."

"He'd need a biography print to beam a message accurately over that distance. It all makes sense now!"

"Maybe," Spandrell allowed. "But why?"

"I _told_ you!" the Doctor said testily. "Because he has an old score to settle."

Engin stepped forwards, bristling indignantly. "See here, Doctor, I just cannot believe that anyone could do what you're suggesting! How can one intercept a thought pattern from within The Matrix itself?"

The Doctor shrugged. "By going in there and joining with it."

"A living mind?" Damon said incredulously.

"Well, in a sense that's all a living mind is, electrochemical impulses," the Doctor told him. "Not only that, I think he's been using his telepathic connection to The Matrix to influence the minds of everyone on Gallifrey to make you all forget he ever existed, so he could go about his work unobstructed. A very ingenious plan."

"Except for me," Tejana spoke up. "Why do I still remember all the stories about him when no-one else does?"

The Doctor smiled at her. "Tejana, you've always had exceptional defensive psychic abilities, even for a Time Lord. And I'm guessing that, as you get older, those abilities will only grow stronger. Somehow, your mind was able to resist his subconscious suggestion. And believe me, there aren't too many minds around strong enough to resist the Master!"

Despite herself, Tejana felt a warm glow inside, her father's praise lighting her hearts. _Pathetic! _she told herself with painful contempt. _I'm so pathetic. I know he couldn't care less about me, and yet here I am, so stupidly hungry for his approval. Damon's right – when will I ever learn?_

"I guess it's lucky I'm good at something," she said brusquely, turning her face away from him and deflecting his words as though they meant nothing to her. "I nearly failed TARDIS Engineering."

To her surprise, the Doctor's grin only widened. If Tejana hadn't known better, she would have said his eyes were dancing with real pride and affection. "Did you? Chip off the old block! So did I!"

Spandrall made an impatient noise at the back of his throat. "So what now, Doctor?"

The Doctor stared at the APC control, his brow furrowed in concentration. "If I went into The Matrix, I could discover where the Master intercepted the circuit."

"You can't," Damon protested. "The psychosomatic feedback might kill you."

"I'm aware of that."

"It's never been done before!" Engin exclaimed, age rattling in his throat, his voice full of panic as he realised that the safe, ordered world he had always known was about to be turned upside down.

Tejana went pale and her stomach swam. From the horrified look on Damon's face, she knew the risk of what her father was proposing was enormous. Without realising what she was doing, she reached out and grasped his arm. "No! I won't let you do it. I only just got you back. I won't let you leave me again!"

The Doctor cupped her face in his hands, tilting her head up until her anxious dark eyes met his calm blue ones. "Tejana, if I don't do this...if I don't produce the Master...they're going to vaporise me anyway. We're running out of time. You're going to have to trust me."

For a moment, she hesitated, conflicted between anger and tears. But his expression was so completely determined, his strong jaw set. He was going to survive this and defeat the Master, no matter what it took. Some things never changed – after all this time, after so long without seeing him, he was still infuriating, wonderful and frustrating, all at the same time.

"I trust you," she whispered, giving in at last. "Be careful."

The Doctor nodded in relief. "Good girl." Then he turned to the Castellan. "Spandrell?"

"Very well, Doctor," Spandrell agreed. "Coordinator, you will allow him to try it."

Engin shot him a doubtful look, as if he was considering arguing further. But then, after glancing at the Doctor's stubborn face, he gave it up as a lost cause and muttered, "Very well, Castellan."

He pressed a sequence of buttons on the control console and a long, narrow couch slid out from under the APC.

"Lie down," Engin instructed. The Doctor did as he was asked, stretching his body out on the couch. "Damon, link him to the system."

The young Time Lord withdrew some electrodes and placed them securely on the Doctor's temples.

"Is this what happens to the near-deceased?" the Doctor asked in a sepulchral tone that made Tejana wince. That was another thing she remembered about travelling with him – his peculiar brand of gallows humour, reserved for when things were at their absolute worst. On this occasion, she definitely wasn't in the mood.

"They're normally unconscious." Damon replied curtly. "I...I think there might be some pain."

The Doctor closed his eyes. "I'm ready when you are."

"Are you _quite _sure?" Engin queried, his hand hovering over the switch.

"Just get on with it!" the Doctor ordered.

With a small shrug, Engin flicked the switch. The APC began to power up and the Doctor's body stiffened in sudden agonising pain.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note: Hello from Daily Update Central! The breaking news is - BIG thanks to everyone who reviewed yesterday's chapter, you are all fantastic, brilliant and generally magnificent: Romana-II, tree1138, Bad Dog No Biscuit, (Aietradaea x 3), MayFairy, xxTeam-Master and Astra68.**

**And now for the weather report for my part of the world - WORST WEATHER EVER! It's pouring with rain, howling with wind, pitch black dark (even though it's morning) and freezing bloody cold! All in all, a good day for writing, methinks!**

**Lastly, on the good news front, my keyboard is now working so I will no longer have any excuses (or be tempted to throw it out the window...too cold to open a window anyway!)**

**Enough rambling from me, here's the chapter...**

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><p><strong>CHAPTER EIGHT<strong>

The Doctor's face was bathed in sweat, his mouth stretched in a silent scream of pain. Every muscle, every tendon, every nerve in his body was strained to absolute breaking point. Tejana hovered by his side, biting her lip in an agony of apprehension as she watched him anxiously.

"Damon," she whispered. "Is he all right?"

Damon, who was busy monitoring the Doctor's life signs, did not reply, his expression tight and hard.

"_Is he all right?_" she repeated, raising her voice insistently.

"No," he answered bleakly. "His brain activity has stopped."

"What?" Engin snapped, coming to stand beside him.

Damon indicated the screen before him. "Look, there's nothing."

"You mean he's dead?" Spandrell asked harshly.

Engin pressed a few more buttons, studying the screen intently. "Virtually. I warned him the psychic shock of that environment..."

"No!" Tejana cried, leaning over the Doctor and seizing one of his unresisting hands in her own. "You're wrong! Look, he's still breathing!"

Engin shrugged, his wrinkled old face solemn with sympathy. "I'm sorry, child. Sometimes motor functions can continue for some time after death."

"Wait!" Damon yelled. "Look! He's back!"

Sure enough, the previously flat-lining graph of the Doctor's brain function was beginning to spike again, in ever-increasing peaks and troughs. Engin stared at the screen in astonishment. "I've never seen anything like it. His brain must have an usually high level of artron energy!"

"What do you think is happening in there?" Spandrell demanded.

Engin shook his head, completely out of his depth by now. "I don't know."

"Come on, Doctor!" Tejana murmured, tightening her grip on his hand. "I trust you. I know you can do this! _I trust you!_"

"His respiration is increasing," Damon noted. "That isn't good."

The Doctor's hoarse breathing was audible in the small room now, rasping in his throat as though he had been running over a long distance.

"That's an adrenaline response," Engin said worriedly. "And there's a massive blood sugar demand. That would suggest he's preparing either to run for his life or to fight for his life."

Tejana's insides ached with helplessness and trepidation. Desperately, she took a deep breath, shut her eyes and began to concentrate, opening the psychic link wide, trying to feel for her father's consciousness. She didn't know if it was even possible. It had been a very long time since she had linked minds with the Doctor. So much had happened, so much time had passed, she wasn't even sure she knew him well enough any more to locate his consciousness within the tangle of electrochemical circuitry that was The Matrix. However, to her surprise, it wasn't nearly as difficult as she had thought. His mind seemed to call to her through the confusion. It was like following a homing beacon through the darkness. All at once, a tumbling flood of images filled her head.

_A rocky quarry, dark, mocking laughter echoing all around; a strange warrior with a lethally curved sword; a sinister surgeon, wearing round opaque spectacles and holding a huge syringe; explosions, bombs going off everywhere; three trains converging together; an evil pair of eyes glaring from the quarry wall; a creepy clown, its garish red mouth wide and cackling with high-pitched laughter; a bi-plane from early twentieth century Earth, strafing the ground with a machine-gun._

"It's another mind," Tejana gasped, trying to make sense of the tremendous influx of disparate visions, streaming directly from the Doctor's tortured consciousness. "Another mind attacking him."

"You mean there's another living mind inside The Matrix?" Damon said incredulously. "Tejana, are you sure?"

"Yes!" she muttered, shifting her head back and forth restlessly. "Hunting him. Wants to hurt him. Wants to _destroy_ him."

"Is it the Master?" Spandrell demanded.

"Don't think so...someone else. I feel like...I should know him, but...I'm not sure. Can't see his face..."

"Can you help the Doctor?"

"No," she replied unhappily. "Can see...can't help..._poison...he's put poison in the water_..._don't drink the water!_"

Spandrell breathed deeply, his frustration evident. He stared imperatively at Engin and Damon. "What can we do?"

"Nothing, Castellan," Damon replied shortly. "It's up to the Doctor now."

Just then, the door slid open, revealing another member of the Chancellery Guard standing there.

"Yes?" Spandrell snapped, annoyed at the interruption.

The young guard looked at him blankly, without recognition, as if he had never seen the Castellan before. Then he dropped his gaze to the place where the Doctor lay, his eyes curiously empty. "Message from the Chancellor, Sir," he recited in a flat monotone. "He'd like the Doctor brought to him."

"Your name is Solis, isn't it?" Spandrell queried, a note of suspicion colouring his tone. "You're one of the Chancellor's personal guard."

Solis turned his head slowly, almost like a sleep-walker. "Yes, Sir."

"You'll have to wait," Engin spoke up sharply. "It'll be over soon, one way or the other."

The guard stood smartly to attention, but did not reply, his expressionless gaze now fixed on the APC console.

"_Shooting_," Tejana cried, her free hand flying to her forehead in pain. "The Doctor's been shot. He's in trouble!"

"He's been in there for almost four minutes." Spandrell exclaimed, forgetting all about the peculiar behaviour of the guard in the escalating urgency of the situation. "How long can a living mind exist in there?"

Engin waved his hand fretfully in the air. "I have no data! I told you, this has never been done before!"

"His body's on the point of collapse now. Low blood pressure, shallow respiration, carbon dioxide increasing. He can't last much longer!" Damon said grimly. "Tejana, you have to let him go. If he dies in there while you're linked to him, I can't tell what effect it might have on you."

"No, I won't...I can't leave him! _Explosions...he's fighting...hurting..._I have to see!" she responded in anguish.

Damon seized her arm, his face twisted with anger and worry at her stubbornness. "Tejana, _let him go_!

"NO!" Her voice burned with intensity as she pulled savagely away from him, her eyes still closed, her concentration completely focused on her father's mind.

"But it's only a mental battle!" Spandrell protested. "If the Doctor's losing, why can't he just pull out?"

Engin shook his head and adjusted some of the controls on the console, trying desperately to stabilise the Doctor's condition. "It's not that simple. From what Lady Tejana says, it appears the enemy has created a mental stronghold within The Matrix – a dream-scape, if you like. He must have been in there many times before to have that sort of control. He's managed to trap the Doctor within it."

"So he doesn't stand a chance?"

"A very slight one," Engin admitted. "His opponent is expending energy in maintaining the reality projection. The Doctor can employ all his own artron energy in his own defence."

"GET BACK!" Damon screamed suddenly. "DON'T TOUCH THAT!"

Startled, Spandrell and Engin whirled around, only to the see the guard, Solis, reaching for a purple button on the APC console. Before he could touch it, Damon hurled himself forward, throwing himself on top of the burly guard and grappling with him.

"He's trying to cut the power!" Damon yelled, desperately struggling to hold Solis back from the controls.

Solis fought like a man possessed, his face set in a terrible rictus of determination, his teeth bared like an animal. Fastening his hands tightly around Damon's throat, he began to squeeze, stabbing his thumbs viciously into the young Time Lord's wind-pipe, throttling the life out of him.

But Spandrell had already drawn his weapon and had it trained on the fighting men. "Stop, Solis! Surrender now or I'll be forced to fire."

Solis paid no attention, his empty eyes gleaming with deadly purpose. Leaving Damon crumpled on the floor, he leapt up and lunged for the console, still obsessively clawing for the purple button.

Without hesitation, Spandrell shot him dead.

At that same moment, the APC console began to hum ominously, sparks crackling and dancing across the control panels, accompanied by several loud explosions. The Doctor convulsed violently, a surge of rogue energy coursing through his body, travelling from his hand into Tejana's. She gave a shriek of pain, feeling the blast detonate inside her, as it ripped her away from her father and hurled her backwards into the wall with stunning force.


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's Note: Good morning all, here is the update for today!**

**Thank you very much to the following lovely people who reviewed yesterday's chapter: Romana-II, Aietradaea, The Mouse's Rose, mericat (x 2), tree1138, Bad Dog No Biscuit, MayFairy, xxTeam-Masterxx and crazychika495 ( x 4).**

**And I actually did manage to post another chapter on "The Master's Rose" as well yesterday, so yay for me, woot ,woot!**

**Hope you enjoy this one...**

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><p><strong>CHAPTER NINE<strong>

Smoke poured from the APC console, an acrid smell of burning filling the air, making it difficult to breathe. Coughing harshly, Tejana struggled to rise, her head spinning from the impact with the wall. With a stab of fear, she saw Damon through the drifting smoke, lying crumpled on the ground.

"Damon!" she yelled, forcing herself to crawl across the floor, trying to reach her friend. She came across the dead guard Solis first, lying on his back, still and lifeless, his eyes staring up at the ceiling. But then, much to her relief, she heard Damon give a tortured groan close by, the sound guiding her to him through the billowing smoke. He was trying to sit up, his hands clawing at his bruised throat, a livid red mark giving mute testimony to just how close he had come to being murdered. Tejana threw her arms around him and cradled him against her, supporting his head on her shoulder as she stared wildly around at the chaos filling the room.

"What the hell is happening?" she cried, trying to make herself heard over the ear-piercing, whining noise suddenly emanating from the APC console.

"The circuits!" Engin returned, overwhelming panic evident in his voice. "Someone's trying to trap the Doctor in The Matrix by overloading the neuron fields! I must cut the power!"

"NO!" Damon rasped, pulling free from Tejana's arms, the sound tearing roughly out of his ravaged wind-pipe. "You can't! If you cut the power, the Doctor will die in there!"

But Engin's hands were already flying over the console, ignoring the dangerous sparks erupting all around him. "I must! The circuits are blowing! If there's a fire, the whole panatropic net...thousands of brain patterns...all will be destroyed!"

Fully convinced now of the Doctor's innocence and knowing he had to act quickly to save him, Castellan Spandrell leapt forward with the agility of a cat and seized the old man, pulling him firmly back from the console. "_They're _not alive!" he growled. "But hopefully the Doctor still is!"

At that moment, the Doctor took in a massive gasp of air and his eyes sprang open. Tejana gave a shout of relief, unwilling to admit even to herself how terrified she had been for her father. "It's all right, Castellan! He's made it!"

At once, Spandrell released Engin, allowing him to press the purple button and cut off the power to the console. The shattering, high-pitched noise fell silent and the electrical sparking across the circuits ceased. Gradually, the choking, debilitating smoke began to dissipate. With a rasping cough, the Doctor managed to sit up, wiping the sweat off his face with his sleeve.

"Do you mind?" he said crossly to Engin. "This is a non-smoking compartment!"

"What?" Engin asked, confused.

The Doctor ran his hands through his wild mop of curly hair, making it stand on end more than ever. "What?" he repeated blankly, looking around him in a disoriented fashion.

Tejana helped Damon to stand and they both came forward to stand with Spandrell and Engin beside the Doctor's couch, exchanging an anxious glance with the two older Time Lords. Who knew what kind of damage the Doctor's mind had sustained in the psychic nightmare generated by The Matrix?

"Doctor," Tejana began cautiously. "How do you feel?"

"Tired," the Doctor responded, collapsing back on to the couch.

Spandrell nodded. "Yes, you'd better rest. You took quite a beating in there."

"You should see the other fellow!" the Doctor said wryly. Then he sat bolt upright again, like a jack-in-a-box on a spring. "Where is he, by the way?"

"Who?"

"Goth!"

Spandrell stared at him in disbelief, sure now that the Doctor had lost his sanity. "Goth?"

"As in, _Chancellor _Goth?" Tejana added, equally astonished.

"Yes," the Doctor told her. "The Master's legman." Then, flicking his gaze to Spandrell's face, he said gravely, "_He's_ the assassin, Castellan."

A light of sudden understanding dawned in Spandrell's cool grey eyes. All at once, putting the pieces together in his mind, he had absolutely no doubt that the Doctor was telling the truth. "So _that's _why he wanted such a quick execution!"

"Yes, that's right!" the Doctor answered grimly, climbing to his feet with a grimace of pain. Weakened from his ordeal, he wavered and almost staggered, until Spandrell caught him firmly under the arm. "It was Goth, remember, who ordered my TARDIS to be transducted from outside the Capitol in the first place. He knew I had doubled back from the Guard and was still inside it. He must have his own link to The Matrix, a sort of tap-in. We've got to trace it back to him before he recovers."

His eyes fell on the still-smoking APC console and a speculative frown crossed his face. "What's underneath here?"

Engin shrugged. "Just service ducts."

"Is that all?"

"Well...a long way down...vaults and foundations dating from the Old Time."

"Come on, come on!" the Doctor said impatiently, already turning for the door. "Show me!"

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><p>Engin led them through a series of dark corridors, descending further and further beneath the Capitol, into the very depths of the gutrock of Gallifrey itself. Tejana guessed they were even lower down than the holding cell complex. The air smelled stale and was freezing cold, every breath she took visible as a little white puff of condensation. The walls of the passageways seemed to be hewn out of pure stone, imposing and ancient. She gave a shiver, thinking of the immense weight of the Citadel above them, her debilitating claustrophobia running rampant as she imagined vividly what would happen if it all began to cave in. Guessing what was going through her mind, Damon slipped his hand into hers, reassuringly twining their fingers together. Tejana gave him an appreciative smile, grateful that her friend knew her so well without a word needing to be said.<p>

At last they came to an archway, leading into a gloomy chamber.

"It's the Adytum," Engin whispered. "From the Old Time. It's located directly under the Records Room."

With the Doctor in the lead and Tejana and Damon bringing up the rear, the small group entered in single file. The room was small and roughly circular in shape, its size similar to that of the Records Room above.

"Doctor!" Spandrell exclaimed, pointing to a dark, cloaked figure sitting stiffly on a chair.

Cautiously, the Doctor approached, alert for any sudden attack, but the figure remained motionless. Reaching out, he flipped back the hood in one swift movement. Tejana caught her breath in horror. The creature he had exposed was absolutely hideous. Clearly once humanoid, it was now little more than a skeleton, its desiccated flesh waxy and molten like candle wax, its face hideously veined and decayed. Dull, lidless eyes stared lifelessly back at them, the creature's teeth bared horribly in a soulless grin.

"The Master!" the Doctor breathed, instantly recognising his enemy. Putting his hand beneath the folds of the black cloak, he felt for a heart-beat. Finding nothing, he reached for one of the Master's scarred and twisted hands, searching for his double pulse.

"Is he dead?" Spandrell asked quietly.

The Doctor nodded, his expression unreadable. "Yes."

In the meantime, Damon had located another couch further back in the room, connected to a tangle of circuitry closely resembling the original APC console in the Records Room. Laying back on it was Chancellor Goth. As the young Time Lord drew closer, Goth gave a deep, gurgling moan.

"The Chancellor's still alive!" Damon called over his shoulder.

The Doctor, Spandrell and Engin crossed the room to join him, staring down at the injured Chancellor. The electrodes connecting Goth to The Matrix were still attached to his head, his facial features blackened and horribly burnt.

"Not for long, by the look of it," Spandrell said, without much sympathy.

Coordinator Engin leant down to check the Chancellor's life signs, shaking his head sadly. "He must have taken the full shock."

"So...Doctor," Goth groaned. "You beat us in the end."

"Goth," the Doctor said, putting his hand on the dying man's arm. "Goth, why did you do it?"

"Wanted power. Wanted...to be President."

The Doctor frowned in puzzlement. "But you would have been."

"No," Goth responded, shaking his head weakly. "President...told me...I was not...his chosen successor."

"So you killed him?" Spandrell demanded, determined now to obtain a definite confession to the murder.

"For _him_. For the Master...his plan."

The Doctor tightened his grip on the Chancellor's arm, trying to keep the man's fading mind alert. "What was his plan, Goth?"

Goth drew in a ragged breath, the death rattle already echoing in his throat. "Met...him on Terserus. He was...dying. No more regeneration possible. Promised me...share all his knowledge...if I brought him to Gallifrey."

"Goth?" the Doctor persisted. "Goth! _What was his plan?_"

But Goth's mind was already wandering and he did not even seem to hear the question. "Couldn't fight...his mental dominance," he muttered hoarsely. "Did everything he asked. Sorry now."

With that, the Chancellor's last breath slipped away between his dry, cracked lips in a long drawn out sigh and his head lolled to one side, his eyes staring at nothing.

"Goth! What was...?" the Doctor tried again, only to be interrupted by Engin's hand on his shoulder.

"It's no use, Doctor. He's dead."

"No answer to a straight question." The Doctor sighed in frustration. "Typical politician!"

Standing in the background, Tejana found her attention drifting. She hadn't known Chancellor Goth very well, but what she had known she hadn't liked. To be honest, she wasn't particularly interested in his ultimate fate. Instead, she found her eyes repeatedly drawn back to the still, macabre figure seated in the chair nearby. Hesitantly, she moved closer, staring down at the Master in reluctant fascination. She couldn't help thinking of the portrait she had found long ago, hanging forgotten in the old Deca common room, in the dusty depths of the Endless Library. It had shown the Doctor and the Master as boys, during their Academy days, their arms around each other, smiling in mutual comradeship. _Theta and Koschei, painted by Ushas. _Hungry for the slightest trace of her lost father, Tejana had taken the picture and hidden it in her dormitory in the Academy, looking at it so often that she knew every detail, every brush-stroke, running her fingers over and over their painted faces. This decrepit, decaying corpse, so hideous, so repellent – how could this be the same Koschei? How was it possible? The smiling, dark-haired boy in the picture had been handsome and charismatic and brilliant. He had friends, family, people who loved him. He had a _future_. And yet, somehow, he had ended up here, dying in this cold, dark crypt, alone and unmourned, his body twisted and broken, his soul ravaged and consumed by hatred and evil. All at once, Tejana felt an unexpected wave of pity for him. Hardly even realising what she did, she raised her hand and stroked her fingers gently down the horror of the dead creature's ruined cheek, as though in a gesture of comfort. It was so strange. She knew she had never come across the Master before and yet she felt such an odd sense of familiarity...

"Tejana? What are you doing?" Damon asked sharply, his voice startling her as he suddenly appeared beside her.

Automatically, almost guiltily, her hand dropped back to her side. "I...nothing," she replied, unable to explain the inexplicable heaviness of her hearts, even to herself. "Nothing at all."


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Note: Hi everyone. Thanks to everyone who kindly continues to review: crazychika495, Romana-II, tree1138, MayFairy, xxTeam-Masterxx, Aietradaea, Bad Dog No Biscuit and Astra68.**

**Chapter Ten today - gee, this is getting long!  
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><p><strong>CHAPTER TEN<strong>

Night was beginning to fall over Gallifrey. The double suns had sunk low on the northern horizon and the vibrant colour of the burnt-orange sky was slowly fading into darkness. Looking out the glass doors of Cardinal Borusa's study, Tejana could see the black evening shadows creeping down from the Mountains of Solace and Solitude, reaching eerie, elongated fingers deep into the Time Lord Citadel.

"It seems clear how it happened," Spandrell was explaining to Borusa. "The Master hypnotised Solis of the Chancellery Guard to murder the Doctor. Then, when that didn't work, he tried to trap the Doctor within the APC Net by overloading the neuron field. It must have all been too much for him – he collapsed and died, leaving Chancellor Goth still connected to the circuit."

Borusa frowned. "Natural causes?"

"Yes, sir. His body was extremely emaciated. He had come to the end of his regeneration cycle."

For a moment, the Lord Cardinal said nothing. Tejana could almost hear the wheels turning in his head. As Damon had said earlier, Borusa was the consummate politician. While Spandrell would see the case as closed from a law enforcement point of view, Borusa's perspective on it would come from a different angle altogether.

"No," he said eventually, in a clear, cool voice, slamming the palm of his hand sharply down on the surface of his desk.

The Doctor raised his eyebrows inquiringly. "No what, Cardinal?"

"The story is not acceptable. This is a very difficult, very delicate position. We must adjust the truth."

"Adjust the truth?" Engin echoed in a puzzled manner. "In what way, Cardinal?"

"In a way that will maintain confidence in the Time Lords and their leadership," Borusa replied gravely.

Standing unobtrusively at the back of the room with Damon, Tejana hid a small, cynical smile at the predictable direction the discussion was taking. It wasn't hard to guess what was going through the Cardinal's devious mind. Now that Goth was dead, the position of Chancellor was up for grabs. And of course, the most obvious candidate to fill the role was Cardinal Borusa, one of the most highly-respected members of the High Council. But if the general public ever found out that The Matrix had been infiltrated so easily by a renegade Time Lord, the political backlash would be enormous. Borusa would need to keep the scandal of Goth's betrayal to an absolute minimum, to ensure a smooth handover of the reins of power into his own capable hands. Especially since everyone knew that the position of Chancellor was merely a stepping stone to eventually becoming President. Knowing how ambitious Borusa was, she guessed that he was playing the long game, keeping his eye firmly on the big prize.

"How many people have seen this so-called Master since his death?" the Cardinal continued, his expression abstracted, deep in thought.

At this, Tejana's eyes widened in surprise. "Ohhh," she whispered in amazement to Damon. "Even Cardinal Borusa!"

"What do you mean, even Cardinal Borusa?" Damon queried, out of the corner of his mouth, keeping his voice low.

"Even _Cardinal Borusa_ doesn't remember the Master. And he _taught _him, the whole time he was at the Academy. Cardinal Borusa never forgets anyone he's ever taught...even little upstarts like Runcible!" Tejana said. "The Doctor was right. To pull that off, the Master must have been absolutely brilliant."

"Brilliant, maybe...but still a cold-blooded murderer!" Damon replied sternly. "Not exactly someone you should be admiring, Tejana."

She knew Damon was right, but the strange sense of almost-recognition she had experienced when she had touched the Master's face continued to niggle at her. She couldn't seem to stop thinking about it.

"I know!" she retorted, somewhat defensively. "But still...even Cardinal Borusa, wow!"

"Apart from the five of us, only Hilred and the two guards who took the body to the Panopticon Vault," Spandrell was saying, answering the Cardinal's question.

"We shall need to rely on the silence of everyone concerned," Borusa continued, already restructuring the course of events in his mind. "We shall change the appearance of the corpse, Castellan. We all know the posthumous effect of a staser bolt. Within the hour, the body will be charred beyond recognition. Our story is going to be that the Master arrived on Gallifrey to assassinate the President, secretly. Before he could escape, Chancellor Goth tracked him down and killed him, unfortunately perishing himself in the exchange of fire. Now _that's _much better. I can believe that."

"You're making Goth into a _hero_?" Tejana blurted out angrily, ignoring Damon's cautionary hand on her arm and stepping forward incredulously. "_Why?_"

Affronted at her interruption, Borusa gave her a cold, quelling glance. "If heroes don't exist, it is necessary to invent them, child. It's merely good for public morale."

"And the Doctor's part in all this?" Engin asked.

"Best forgotten," Borusa answered smoothly, giving a small, dismissive wave with his hand. "Of course, Doctor, the charge against you will be dropped."

The Doctor gave a faint, ironic smile. "How kind."

"Conditional on you leaving Gallifrey tonight, " Borusa added sharply, raising an admonitory finger.

"Somehow, Cardinal, I don't want to stay."

Tejana heard her father's words, but refused to allow them to sink in, knowing they would hurt beyond all bearing. _Of course he wants to leave_, she told herself dispassionately. _Why wouldn't he? There's nothing for him here. Nothing but a daughter he never wanted in the first place. Child of a woman he never loved...a responsibility and a burden he doesn't wish to shoulder. What is there in that to make him want to stay?_

She felt Damon give her a concerned glance, but she refused to look at him, knowing the sympathy in his dark eyes would only make her fall apart. Instead, she stiffened her spine, holding herself together with an icy control that was becoming almost second nature.

"Good," Cardinal Borusa said in satisfaction. "Now, I believe you know something of the Master's past?"

"We've bumped into each other from time to time," the Doctor replied.

"Then you will go immediately with Co-ordinator Engin, Castellan Spandrell and young Damon to the Records Room, where you will assist in comprising a new biog of the Master before you leave," Borusa instructed. "It doesn't have to be entirely accurate."

"Like Time Lord history," the Doctor said dryly.

Borusa completely ignored his comment. Rising majestically to his feet, he fixed his gaze on Co-ordinator Engin. "A few facts will lend it verisimilitude, Co-ordinator. We cannot make the Master into a public enemy if there is no data on him."

"Yes, Cardinal," Engin replied respectfully. "I'll have an authentic-seeming data extract ready by the morning."

"I'll leave that to you then," Borusa nodded, content that the situation had been dealt with and would cause him no further problems. "Later, Castellan, we must take another look at data security. We cannot have Time Lord DEs simply vanishing from the records."

Spandrell nodded. "I agree, Sir."

Borusa straightened his robes and moved out from behind his desk. "Now, I must meet with the other members of the High Council to inform them of what has happened. Lady Tejana, you will wait for me here. I wish to speak to you upon my return."

Tejana's head shot up in surprise. "Me, Your Eminence?"

"Yes. I've received a complaint from Lord and Lady Brightshore," Borusa said sternly. "Something about their son's nose being broken. Of course, I have assured them that I do not take that sort of violence lightly and that a suitable punishment will be implemented."

Tejana coloured and gracefully dropped into a resigned curtsey. "Yes, Sir," she said in a listless voice.

"Well, I think that is all. Castellan, see that you attend to the cosmetic treatment," Borusa commanded, heading for the exit.

Spandrell frowned, not understanding what he meant. "Sorry, Sir?"

"The body, Spandrell," Borusa said impatiently. "The _body_!"

"Oh...yes, Sir. I'll have Commander Hilred see to it right away."

The Cardinal gave an imperious nod and swept grandly out the door, eager to assert his newly-prominent position with the High Council.

"Only in mathematics will we find truth," the Doctor muttered, watching him go. "Borusa used to say that during my time at the Academy. And now he's setting out to prove it."

Turning abruptly, he fixed his eyes on his daughter. "You broke somebody's _nose_?"

Tejana's chin came up mutinously, resenting the parental note of censure in his voice. After all, what right did he have to chastise her? A father she hadn't seen for decades; a father who dropped in only because of a High Council summons and was even now preparing to leave again, without a second thought; a father who had no idea what her life had been like since he had been exiled and most likely didn't care.

"It's called self-defence, actually," she answered, folding her arms stubbornly. "And I don't want to talk about it. It's my problem, not yours."

"Doctor, I really think we should get started on the Master's biog," Engin said hurriedly, sensing the beginnings of a domestic argument he didn't want to get involved in. "It will take some time to repair the damage to the APC, after all."

With that, he pulled out a data tablet and stylus and began to take some rapid notes. "What about his character?"

"Bad," the Doctor said curtly, his eyes still locked on his daughter's defiant face.

"I'm afraid you'll need to be a little more specific."

The Doctor's gaze swung back towards him. "Evil. Cunning. Resourceful. Highly developed powers of ESP and a formidable hypnotist," he rattled off, a slight frown creasing his brow. "And the more I think about it, the less likely it seems."

"What does?" Spandrell asked.

"Well...that the Master would meekly accept the end of his regeneration cycle. It's not his style at all."

"That is something we all must accept, Doctor," Engin said with a wistful sigh. He himself was already on his twelfth regeneration and his current body was steadily deteriorating. These days, Death walked with him as his constant companion and acceptance of the inevitable end had become painfully necessary.

"No, not the Master," the Doctor responded. "No, _he_ had some sort of plan. That's why he came here."

Spandrell, who was not so young himself any more, gave a dismissive snort at the idea. "After the twelfth regeneration, there is no plan that can postpone death."

"He had a plan," the Doctor insisted. "Something to do with Goth becoming President. What's so special about the President, Engin?"

"Nothing. He's simply an elected Time Lord, usually from some senior position, such as Chancellor. He holds the symbols of office, but other than that he's no different to any other Time Lord."

"Symbols?"

"Yes," Engin nodded. "Relics from the Old Time. The Sash of Rassilon. The Key."

"Ah," the Doctor murmured, deep in thought. "Tell me about Rassilon."

"Well, it's all in the Book of the Old Time. But there is a modern transgram which is much less difficult."

"Can we hear that? Now?"

Engin shrugged. "Of course. It's held in the Records Room."

"Oh!" the Doctor exclaimed, stopping dead in his tracks and giving a small grimace.

The others all looked at him anxiously.

"What is it, Doctor?" Damon asked.

The Doctor gave a wide, cheerful grin. "I can feel my hair curling," he said in wonder. "And that means, either it's going to rain...or else I'm on to something." With that, he turned towards the door. "Come on then, Engin, Spandrell...you too, Damon. Tejana, you'd better stay here as Borusa asked – I'll see you later."

_Yes, to say goodbye, no doubt, _she thought bitterly, without replying.

Damon gave her hand a quick, comforting squeeze and followed Engin and Spandrell out of the room, leaving Tejana alone. She could hear Spandrell on his communicator, ordering Commander Hilred down to the Panopticon Vault, to stasar what was left of the Master.

Wearily, she walked across to the chair in front of Borusa's opulent desk and sank down into it. All the adrenaline of the day seemed to have seeped away and she was left feeling flat, dull and empty. Through the glass doors, she saw the huge, gorgeous heliotrope moon rising into the starry sky. Suddenly, she remembered what the moon of Earth had looked like, so white and pure and ethereal, so different from the amaranthine satellite of her own world. Hot tears rose up to choke her. She would never visit Earth again or any other planet. Seeing the Doctor once more, realising at last that she meant nothing to him, had crushed every dream she had ever had. He would leave again and she would be stuck here on Gallifrey forever, regeneration after endless regeneration, just doing exactly what she was told until she died.

Rebellion burnt fiercely inside her. She was _tired_ of doing what she was told. And she wasn't in the least bit sorry she had broken Tabor's nose. She only wished she had done it years ago. Furiously, she dashed the tears from her cheeks. She wasn't going to sit here and cry. And she wasn't going to meekly wait for Borusa, either. Her thoughts returned to the twisted, dark corpse lying below in the Panopticon Vault. The weird sense of familiarity still bothered her and she needed to know what it meant.

She needed to see the Master, one more time.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Note: Hello all. Apologies for delay on this one, it's been a busy weekend. Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter - padmay97, mericat, The Mouse's Rose, Romana-II, tree1138, MayFairy, Bad Dog No Biscuit, Aietradaea, Catelly (x 2) and crazychika495.** **So nice of you all!**

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><p><strong>CHAPTER ELEVEN<strong>

Tejana stood outside the entrance to the Panopticon Vault, which was directly below the main ceremonial chamber. The door was dead-locked, just as she had suspected it would be. Not only the Master lay dead within, but also the President and the Chancellor of Gallifrey, each waiting for their state funeral pyres. After everything that had happened today, Castellan Spandrell would be taking no chances with security. The sonic screwdriver the Doctor had given her long ago was no use against a dead-lock. If she wanted to get inside, she was going to have to improvise.

Taking off her silver tiara, she ran her fingers through her hair, fluffing it up and giving it a more tousled, sexy look, before undoing the top three snap-fastenings on her robe, exposing a considerable amount of cleavage. Then, feeling embarrassed and stupid, she did the buttons back up. _ Stars, she really wasn't good at this sort of thing_. If Damon could see her now, she would never live it down. All the same, though, if it was the only way to get in...she hesitated for a brief moment until, with a resigned sigh, she undid them again.

The sound of marching feet sounded at the end of the corridor and Commander Hilred appeared, striding briskly towards the Vault. Taking a deep breath, Tejana fixed her eyes on him and gave him a welcoming smile, tossing her long blonde hair provocatively over her shoulder.

Hilred stopped short and stared at her. "Lady Tejana."

"Commander Hilred," she returned coyly.

"What are you doing here?"

She lowered her head in pretended shyness, as if she was trying to hide a non-existent blush. "I...I was waiting for you, Commander."

"For me?" He sounded wary, but intrigued, a definite note of interest in his voice. It was certainly not usual for a high-born Time Lady to actively seek out a particular member of the Guard, even one of advanced rank like Hilred.

"Oh, yes," she breathed, looking up at him from under her lashes, desperately hoping her attempt at flirtation was convincing. "I just wanted to tell you how marvellous I thought you were today. So strong...so capable. Castellan Spandrell is _so _lucky to have you as one of his men."

Hilred stood up a bit straighter, puffing out his thin chest. "I was just doing my duty, my Lady."

"No, no," she protested, moving towards him and placing her hand confidingly on his arm. "It's so much more than that, Commander. I just feel so _safe _when you're around. And...forgive me for saying so...but you look_ so_ handsome in your uniform. I just love a man in uniform."

"You do?" Hilred murmured dazedly, taking the opportunity to eye the cleavage exposed by her opened buttons.

"I came here because I was hoping..." she began, only to allow her voice to trail away. "But perhaps I'm being too forward."

"No, please, Lady Tejana. Don't hesitate to tell me what's on your mind. What were you hoping?"

She tilted her head to one side and smiled at him. "I was hoping we could spend some time alone together."

Hilred's gaze dropped to her mouth, his eyes gleaming now with extremely male anticipation. "That would certainly be a pleasure. I have one small task to complete in the Vault and then I'm sure we could find somewhere more...private."

She pouted prettily. "Oh...but I don't have long. Cardinal Borusa will be looking for me soon. Couldn't I...come into the Vault with you?"

"I'm not sure that's such a good idea," Hilred said uncertainly. "There are dead bodies in there. It's no place for a lady like you."

"But I could never be frightened, not with you there to look after me," Tejana answered, piling on the flattery. "I've never been in the Vault before and I'd really like to see it. Who knows? I might find it...exciting."

He hesitated for one brief moment, but then, unable to resist the temptation she offered, he nodded eagerly. "Very well then." Reaching up, he inserted his pass key into the lock.

Inwardly, Tejana was cheering at her unprecedented success. The only trick now was to keep Hilred off her while she had another close look at the Master's remains. Once inside, Hilred closed the door again. Turning to her with an amorous glint in his eyes, he tried to pull her into his arms. But Tejana was too quick. With a demure smile at him, she twirled coquettishly away from him down the shallow stairs, moving further into the room, beyond his reach.

"So...this is the Panopticon Vault...," she trilled like an excited sight-seer, all the while surreptitiously taking everything in with a keen glance. "How very...interesting."

In actual fact, a better word for it would have been creepy. It was a large, dim, hexagonal chamber with a grey-paved floor, stone walls, and an oppressively low ceiling. Three stone biers had been hastily erected in the middle of the room, each of them bearing a body. The Lord President and Chancellor Goth lay in state, formally dressed in their ceremonial robes of office, their faces respectfully shrouded in white cloth. The President still wore the golden Y-shaped Sash of Rassilon around his neck, the ultimate symbol of his exalted status. In accordance with custom, it would not be removed until the moment his funeral pyre was set alight, when it would be handed on to his successor. On the third catafalque lay the Master, still dressed in his decaying black cloak, his gibbous eyes staring blankly up at the ceiling.

The air was freezing cold, as was only to be expected in a mortuary, and deathly silent, the echoing stillness adding to the already eerie atmosphere. Tejana could almost believe she heard hoarse, unnatural breathing emanating covertly from the shadows. She could feel goose-bumps rising on her skin. All at once, she was glad of Hilred's company, egotistic idiot though he was. The thought of being down here all alone was not a pleasant one.

Quickly, before the Commander caught up with her, she went to stand at the foot of the Master's bier, looking intently down at him, searching for the elusive sense of familiarity she had felt earlier. The sight of his decaying corpse seemed even more horrifying the second time around, even though she was prepared for it. The odd feeling did not stem from any sort of physical recognition, of that much she was sure. She had definitely never seen him before. After all, in this particular form he wasn't exactly someone you would ever forget. But if her senses were not registering on a physical level, the only possible explanation was a psychic identification. And that was equally impossible – even in the unlikely event that she had come across him before, the Master was _dead_. There was absolutely no way she could be receiving anything from his mind.

As she was trying to puzzle it out, Hilred came to stand beside her, a curious look on his face. "You seem fascinated by the creature, Lady Tejana."

"I've just never seen anything quite like it before, Commander," she said truthfully. She wished she could reach out and touch the Master's hand, just to see if it would help to isolate and clarify the confused sensations she had experienced earlier. But with Hilred there, she didn't dare. The Commander obviously already thought she was some kind of thrill-seeking voyeur. She had enough problems already – she didn't want to make things worse for herself.

"Hideous, isn't he?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied. "Very."

Hilred gave a conceited smirk. "He'll look worse when I've finished with him. Castellan Spandrell has ordered me to stasar him, to completely obliterate his identity. This won't be pleasant, Lady Tejana. I suggest you stand some distance away, until I'm finished." He leered at her appreciatively. " And then you and I can continue getting better acquainted."

"Perhaps you're right, Commander," Tejana agreed, thinking despondently that her whole mission had been a waste of time. She had learned nothing new about the Master and now she had the added problem of trying to figure out how she was going to get out of the room without being pawed by Hilred. With a sigh, she began to turn away, having no wish to witness the gruesome sight of the body being incinerated by stasar fire.

But then, with a sudden reflexive jerk, she swung back to face the bier, her eyes narrowed, her skin crawling. _Did she...? No, no...it couldn't have been._ There was no way she had seen the Master's hand twitch. This morbid place was making her imagine things, like the sounds in the shadows.

"Is something the matter?" Hilred queried.

"No...," she said hesitantly. "No. It's nothing."

He smiled at her condescendingly. "This won't take a moment."

With that, he drew his stasar and aimed it at the Master's face. Suddenly cold, Tejana wrapped her arms around herself and turned her back, walking across to the other side of the room, her eyes focused on the featureless stone wall, waiting for it to be over.

But there was no loud blast from Hilred's weapon, no explosion of bright light. Instead, she heard a terrified, strangled gasp. Whirling around, she saw the dark, macabre figure of the Master sitting upright, one of his scarred hands wrapped firmly around Hilred's throat with preternatural strength.

"Hilred!" Tejana screamed, running forward. But it was much, much too late. The corpse-like figure of the evil Time Lord slipped his free hand inside his robes and withdrew a small, black device with a bulbous end. With a hollow, mocking laugh, he pointed it directly at the struggling Hilred. There was a high-pitched whine and the Commander's body began to shimmer and violently convulse. He gave a shriek of soul-searing agony and then he began to shrink, becoming smaller and smaller, until his awful cries could no longer be heard and he lay broken on the ground like a discarded doll.

Appalled, Tejana began to back away, only to realise that she had nowhere to go. The pass-key to the door had been in Hilred's pocket. She was trapped in here with a monster.

Still laughing, the Master turned to face her. "Well, well, well...the Doctor's daughter, all grown up!" he sneered in a rasping voice. "Hello, Tejana."

"You...you were dead!" she gasped in horror.

"I injected myself with Tricophenyladehyde. It's a neural inhibitor. A crude method of feigning death, but effective," the Master returned. "I have no doubt the Doctor has it all nearly figured out by now."

Raising the matter compression device, he aimed it squarely at the place between her hearts. "Such a pity it won't be in time in save his daughter!"


	12. Chapter 12

**_Author's Note: Hi there. Big wave to everyone who reviewed yesterday's chapter. I'm getting near the end now, so I really appreciate the encouragement you guys have given me! You're the sort of people I love to write for, because you give me something back for all the work I put in! In particular this time, thanks to: Romana-II. MayFairy, padmay97, Bad Dog No Biscuit and mericat._**

_**This is the chapter for which you preferably need to have read "My Bad Bad Angel" first.**_

_**Thanks very much and here it is...**_

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><p><strong>CHAPTER TWELVE<strong>

And then, suddenly, with a sort of calm, cool clarity, she understood.

Facing certain death, deep in the gloomy vaults of Gallifrey, she felt the touch of the Master's mind and she remembered. Her eyes widened as though she had been struck by a lightning bolt.

"It was _you_!" she gasped.

Still holding his weapon trained on her, the Master hesitated. "What are you talking about?"

"All those years ago, when I was eight years old...I had to face the Untempered Schism alone and I was afraid. _You_ were the stranger who came to help me!"

Caught up in the overwhelming, breathtaking revelation, she completely forgot to be afraid. She had never forgotten the enigmatic stranger who had appeared out of nowhere, providing encouragement and hope to a lonely, love-starved, terrified child when she had needed it most. She had never found out who he was and she had never seen him again. In the end, as the years had passed, she had come to wonder if she had invented him back then as a childish coping mechanism, unconsciously creating some kind of benevolent imaginary friend out of her own mind to help get her through the ordeal of facing the Untempered Schism. But now, within this deformed, decaying, murderous shell of a man, she once again sensed the same mind. He had been real after all. As insane, as unbelievable as it seemed, it had been the Master all along. With a sharp pang, she heard again the sound of his voice inside her head, right at the terrible moment when all had seemed lost and hopeless.

_Tejana. You're not alone. I'm here._

"You were there for me," she said incredulously. "If it wasn't for you, I would have let my fear win. I would have run away and I would never have been initiated into the Academy."

"That was long ago!" the Master snarled. But Tejana noticed that he lowered the weapon slightly, as if he too was remembering. "It meant nothing then and it means nothing now."

"But I don't get it," she said, shaking her head, still trying to get her head around the fact that her guardian angel from so long ago was now about to murder her. "If you're going to kill me, at least tell me why! Why are you doing this? Why are you killing all these people?"

"To survive!" he hissed. "_Look _at me! I've come to the end of my regeneration cycle. My body is wasted, rotting from the inside out. But when my plan comes to fruition, it will enable me to cheat death – I will be young and strong once again."

"_What_ plan? The Doctor's beaten you. Goth is dead – he'll never be President now. So whatever you were hoping to achieve, it's over for you!"

"My greatest desire was to see the Doctor die in shame and ignominy. But Goth was a weak fool. Now that he has failed me, I will be forced to use more direct means," the Master said coldly. "But the end result will be the same. The Time Lords will all be destroyed, along with the entire planet. Starting with you, my dear."

Tejana raised her chin defiantly and looked him in the eye. "You once went out of your way to be kind to me when I was a grief-stricken, lonely child, with no ulterior motive or benefit to yourself. For you to have done that, there must be some good left in you somewhere, however evil you've become."

The Master laughed bitterly. "You're _still _a child, Tejana – so innocent, so naïve. You don't understand hatred as I understand it. Only hatred has kept me alive for this long. It's the only thing that allows me to endure this pain, the only thing that matters."

"Trust me, I understand hatred," she retorted, thinking of her virulent loathing of Councillor Rohan. "And I understand pain, more than you'll ever know. But I don't believe you'll kill me in cold blood. You were my father's best friend...Koschei."

For one brief moment, the Master seemed to hesitate, his protuberant eyes searching her face, as though her words had somehow struck a chord deep within him. But then he made a sound like a rabid dog snarling.

"Foolish girl. Koschei is dead," he ground out, raising his weapon again. "Now there is only..._the Master_."

At that moment, they heard the sound of another pass-key being inserted in the lock on the other side of the door. Despite his debilitated state, the Master moved much more quickly than Tejana could ever have anticipated. Snatching up the stasar that had fallen from Hilred's hand, he seized her by the wrist and brutally dragged her into the shadows at the back of the room.

"Not a sound!" he growled. "Or I'll kill each and every person that comes through that door."

Tejana bit her lip to stop herself crying out in pain. The iron strength of his grip on her wrist was incredible. As she watched, hidden in the darkness at his side, the door to the Vault slid back and the Doctor entered, followed closely by Spandrell, Engin and Damon. Tejana wanted to scream as loud as she could, to warn them to get out, but she was too afraid. The Master's grip on her wrist was like a vice, reminding her to remain silent. She had to obey - she couldn't bear the idea of any of them ending up the same way as the murdered Commander, especially Damon or the Doctor.

"Hilred?" Spandrell called urgently, looking around the room. "Hilred, where are you?" Then he saw the empty bier. "The Master's gone!"

Damon was staring down at the ground, a sick look of horror written across his handsome face. "Look!"

He pointed at the tiny effigy sprawled on the floor, unmistakably clad in the red and cream uniform of the Chancellery Guard.

"It's Hilred," Spandrell said heavily.

"But...that's dreadful!" Engin exclaimed, his wrinkled old face drawn with disgust.

The Doctor nodded bleakly. "The Master's consumed by hatred. It's his one great weakness."

"Ha!" the Master spoke up derisively, apparently unable to resist taunting his enemy. "Weakness, Doctor?"

At the sound of his voice, the four Time Lords whirled around, their eyes frantically raking the gloomy corners of the room.

"As I was just explaining to your daughter, hatred is strength!" the Master continued, stepping forward into the light and pulling Tejana with him, the stasar held threateningly to her head.

"Tejana!" Damon cried fearfully.

"Hatred isn't strength in your case!" the Doctor spat, taking a step forward. "You'd delay an execution to pull the wings off a fly! Now let her go!"

"Stay back, Doctor, or she dies!" the Master retorted. "And this time the execution will not be delayed. I can assure you, I am not nearly so infirm as I look. Now...you, boy...bring me the Sash of Rassilon."

"Don't do it, Damon!" Tejana gritted out. She didn't know exactly what the Master's plan was, but the fact that he had gone to so much trouble to obtain the Sash told her they should never let him have it. "Don't do anything he says!"

"A stupid remark!" the Master grinned, twisting her arm viciously behind her back until she screamed. "Resistance is futile now. You will obey me!"

Bewildered, terrified for Tejana, Damon looked at the Doctor in desperate indecision. The Doctor's eyes narrowed as he glanced back and forth between his enemy and the golden sash adorning the body of the late President, trying to put all the pieces together in his head.

"Oh yes, Doctor," the Master sneered, watching him closely. "Why else do you think I feigned death? I want that Sash. And it is somewhat wasted on our dearly departed friend, is it not? Bring it to me immediately, boy!"

Without warning, Spandrell surged forward, trying to knock the stasar out of the Master's hand. But he was too slow. The evil Time Lord swung around and released an explosive bolt, striking the Castellan directly in the mid-riff, hurling him to the ground. Then, for good measure, he fired at Engin too, the old man collapsing to join Spandrell on the floor.

"I warned you!" the Master snapped. "Doctor, I've suffered long enough from your stupid, stubborn interference in my designs. This time, disobedience will not be tolerated."

"Why did you bring me here?" the Doctor demanded, staring aghast at the crumpled bodies of the two Time Lords.

The Master laughed mockingly. "As a scapegoat for the killing of the President, of course. Who else but you, Doctor? So despicably good, so insufferably compassionate. I wanted you to _die_ in ignominious shame and disgrace."

As he spoke he, raised the stasar and pointed it at the Doctor. "But now...now we are coming to the end of our conflict."

"NO!" Tejana shrieked, struggling wildly.

But at such close range, the Master could hardly miss. The bright light of the stasar blazed forth and in anguish she saw her father fall.


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's Note: OK, just to prove I sometimes keep my promises, here is another chapter of this one. Only one or maybe two to go now, methinks.**

**Thanks to the following people for reviewing the previous chapter, it was lovely to hear from you:- MayFairy, Bad Dog No Biscuit, Romana-II, Padmay97, tree1138, Aietradaea, xxTeam-Masterxx, Astra68 and Lost Moon.**

**One of my lovely reviewers has suggested that maybe people don't review things because they are shy or don't know what to write. All I can say is, I'm not scary and I don't bite - I will always be delighted with any comment anyone wants to make. So please let me know what you think, even a two word comment, it would be much appreciated!**

**Also, if you haven't already read it, the latest chapter of "The Master's Rose" is also up - I would definitely love some reviews on that one (yeah, I know, self-advertising, so sue me, LOL!)  
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><p><strong>CHAPTER THIRTEEN<strong>

"Now," the Master hissed malevolently at Damon. "Do as I say, boy, or both you and your pretty girlfriend will get the same."

Twisting Tejana's wrist viciously, he forced her to drop to her knees on the stone floor and pointed the stasar pistol threateningly at the back of her head. Damon knew he had no choice. The Master was obviously completely mad. Reluctantly, he stepped over the Doctor's supine body to the President's bier, stripping the gleaming Sash of Rassilon from the dead Time Lord and handing it to the Master.

The Master gave a laugh of pure triumph and shot the boy down anyway, the stasar blast taking him in the chest and flinging him backwards to lie on top of the Doctor. Tears of anguish streamed down Tejana's cheeks as she looked at their limp bodies, the very foundations of her universe seeming to collapse beneath her. Whatever the Doctor had done, however much he had hurt her, she had always loved him with both of her hearts. He was her beacon of light, giving her hope when things were at their worst, leading her on towards the dream that was always just over the horizon. And Damon...her precious friend, the one she could rely on, the one who had always been there for her, no matter what..._how could he be gone, just like that_? Gritting her teeth, she waited for the Master to kill her too, praying he would get it over with quickly. Her mind seemed to go numb, the treasured memory of the guardian angel of her childhood crumbling into acrid dust as she looked up into his hideous face, anticipating the blast that would end her life. To her surprise, he yanked her to her feet and began to pull her with him towards the door.

"They're not dead," he rasped. "Stunned. They'll live long enough to see the end of this accursed planet and for the Doctor to taste the full bitterness of his defeat."

_Stunned? Not dead? _The sharp relief blazed through her, galvanising her like a slap across the face. Instinctively, she began to struggle again. "Let me go! I have to help them!"

"Oh no, my dear – you're coming with me. You still have some value to me as a hostage, just in case the Doctor tries one last time to circumvent my plan," he snarled, tightening his grip on her wrist as he swiftly leant down to extract Spandrell's pass-key from within the old Time Lord's robes.

"_What _plan?" she demanded, digging in her heels and forcing him to drag her. "You're totally deranged, you know that, don't you? What good can that mouldy old Sash be to you? It's only symbolic, something the President gets to wear to make him feel important, it doesn't _do_ anything!"

He turned and looked at her, his lidless eyes glaring madly from the shadow of his hood. "That's where you're wrong, little girl. This Sash is a technological masterpiece. It protects its wearer from being sucked into a parallel universe. All I need now is the Great Key and I can regenerate myself and release a force that'll obliterate this entire stellar system."

"The Great Key?" she echoed. "What _for_?"

"You will soon see!" he replied, opening the door and forcing her through it, before sealing it securely behind them.

But just before it closed, a small movement caught Tejana's eye. The Doctor was already beginning to stir.

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><p>A loud smashing sound reverberated around the silent Panopticon and glass tinkled musically to the ground, the shards scattering like sharp, sparkling ice. The Master reached into the ruined display case and drew out the long, black sceptre-like object that lay within, holding it up in front of him with gloating satisfaction.<p>

"Ah," he muttered. "The Great Key. The Rod of Rassilon. Now nothing can stop me!"

Hoping to take advantage of his momentary inattention, Tejana began to edge towards the door, only to see the tissue compression eliminator swing around to focus on her again.

"I wouldn't do anything foolish, if I were you," he warned. "Take the Key."

Unwillingly, Tejana reached out and took the black rod from him. She couldn't help giving a little shiver as it slid into her grip. It felt repulsive in her hand, too slick, too smooth, too cold beneath her fingers. The Master moved over to the main dais, to the very same place where the Lord President had been murdered less than twenty four hours before. To Tejana, it suddenly seemed like a lifetime ago.

"Now, insert the Key here," the Master ordered, indicating a small, almost unnoticeable hole in the floor. "And turn it, in line with the markings on it."

She did as she was told, watching him carefully out of the corner of her eye, hoping for a chance to knock his weapon from his grasp. The Great Key sank easily into the narrow shaft, vibrating as it went, twisting within her hand almost like a living thing. Tejana had a horrible feeling that it recognised the hole and was glad to be home.

Almost immediately, there was an ominous rumbling beneath the dais and the floor slid smoothly apart. Tejana gasped and backed away, not a moment too soon, as a brilliant blaze of Time-fire erupted from the yawning maw below the dais, spiralling up to the ceiling in a stunning white column. Then the blinding luminescence seemed to fall away, revealing a huge, hexagonal crystal, taller than a man and as black as the night. Four pipes were attached to it, leading down beneath the ground into the heart of Gallifrey itself, each regulated by a red valve handle.

"What...what is it?" Tejana asked.

"The Eye of Harmony!" the Master replied, placing the golden sash over his head as he spoke. "Rassilon's Star. That which balances all things."

"The Eye of Harmony is just a myth!" she cried incredulously, remembering back to all the dry history lessons she had endured at the Academy, hearing again the boring voice of her tutor in her head:-

_Now Rassilon found the Eye of Harmony, which balances all things, that they may neither flux nor wither nor change their state in any measure. And he caused the Eye to be brought to the world of Gallifrey wherein he sealed this beneficence with the Great Key. _

She shook her head frantically. "It doesn't really exist, not any more."

"Oh, it exists, all right!" he crowed, circling the creepy black crystal with exultant jubilation. "This is the source from which the Time Lords derive all their power. Don't you understand what Rassilon did? What the Eye of Harmony _is_? It's the nucleus of a black hole, stabilised and set in an eternally dynamic equation against the mass of the planet. And now it's all mine. I shall have supreme power over the Universe. Master of all matter!"

With that, he reached for one of the red valves attached to the Eye and turned it, detaching one of the pipes from the crystal. The whole room shook violently, the lights flashing on and off like a warning beacon, great tremors twisting the floor as though an earthquake was tearing through the ground beneath the Panopticon.

"You can't!" Tejana screamed, trying desperately to keep her balance. "If you unleash the power of a black hole, you'll destroy not only Gallifrey, but hundreds of other worlds as well!"

"A small price to pay!" he returned, reaching for another valve. "When I shall live forever!"

The upheaval of the ground worsened. Great chunks of the ceiling began to rain down from above, smashing on to the floor with terrific force. In the corners of the great chamber, the huge black statues of the founding fathers of Gallifrey began to waver and fall, one by one toppling to the ground and shattering into pieces. The beautiful carved malachite walls began to crack, huge fissures shuddering from the ground up to the roof, spreading like a cancerous disease.

Realising that the fate of the whole stellar system was at stake, Tejana hurled herself bodily at the Master, kicking and punching and clawing at his eyes as she went. There was a burst of light from his tissue compression eliminator, but she was too quick and the shot missed. The weapon skittered from his hand, lost amongst the rubble littering the quaking floor. They fell to the ground, still struggling, as more blocks of stone plummeted around them. Tejana fought like a wild thing, but somehow, bringing to bear all of his unnatural strength, he managed to hold her down, one skeletal hand viciously crushing her wind-pipe. As she fought for breath, his other hand scrabbled around in the debris beside him, seizing a sizeable chunk of rock and raising it in the air, ready to smash it down on to her defenceless face.


	14. Chapter 14

**_Author's Note:_**

**_Howdy! Here I am, back with another chapter - told you I'd get this one finished soon. Only one more to go after this! Fifteen chapters - a bit longer than the ficlet I originally intended, but meh, what can you do?  
><em>**

**_Thanks very much to all the people who reviewed the last chapter: MayFairy, Padmay97, Romana-II, xxTeam-Masterxx, Bad Dog No Biscuit, iLuvTwiBoyz, Catelly, tree1138, Aietradaea and Astra68._**

**_Special wave to iLuvTwiBoyz, who watched the episode on YouTube, just so she could follow this story - that's lovely!  
><em>**

_**Hope you all enjoy!**_

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><p><strong><span>CHAPTER FOURTEEN<span>**

Choking, gasping, struggling for breath, Tejana gazed up at the sharp-edged stone hovering above her face, darkness closing in around the edges of her vision. Somewhere, far away in the dim, distant reaches of her mind, she realised the Master was hesitating.

_Why didn't he do it? Why didn't he just smash the rock down and end it?_

Another huge quake shook the room, the floor directly beneath them bucking and jumping. The Master was thrown momentarily off balance, his grip around Tejana's neck slipping. She didn't even think, she just reacted, the same way a trapped animal would react. Turning her head, she sank her teeth savagely into his wrist, tearing at the desiccated flesh with her incisors. The taste in her mouth was unbelievably foul, the nauseating taste of rot and decay, the same taste she imagined a putrefying corpse would have. But she didn't let go. The Master howled in agony, trying without success to rip his wrist free. With a supreme effort, Tejana managed to twist beneath him, bringing up her leg and kicking him off her. Scrambling to her feet, sucking great, sobbing breaths of air, she stumbled towards the Eye of Harmony. Only two pipes remained connected to the crystal. Somehow she had to reattach the other two, or the whole of Gallifrey was doomed. Already the quakes were escalating in intensity – who knew the effect the tremendous upheaval was having on the rest of the Citadel?

But before she had taken more than two steps, she felt something fasten around her right ankle like a vice. Looking down, she saw the Master, his hand grasping her leg, holding her back with dogged determination. All at once, her brain seemed to shudder along with the room, a bright flash streaking across her mind, as though the entire Universe had just slipped sideways for a second. In that one eerie instant, they were no longer in the Panopticon, they were in some other place, some other time. She could hear a drum beating, over and over again, a terrifying rhythm of four like a giant heartbeat and the Master's touch on her ankle burned and burned and burned, charring and searing her skin, marking her as his for all eternity...

And then the weird vision vanished. She could hear his voice, giggling with malice, dragging her back to the present. "Oh no, you don't, little girl!"

With an enormous yank, he pulled her feet out from under her and she fell, striking her head on the stairs with enough force to momentarily paralyse her, blood streaming from a deep gash on her temple. Dazed, unable to move, she watched him rise and make his way unsteadily towards the pulsating black crystal, reaching for the third pipe and disconnecting it. Tejana could hear an awful rumbling, grinding noise beneath the ground, as though the very bowels of Gallifrey were tearing themselves apart.

"No! You have to stop!" she tried to scream, her voice trailing like a thread through the fractured air, lost in the cataclysm of sound.

The Master laughed wildly, exulting in the chaos as if it was feeding the darkness in his soul, stimulating him like some sort of drug. Ecstatically, he reached for the last pipe.

At that moment, a curly head suddenly became visible, protruding from one of the Panopticon service shafts.

"Doctor!" the Master cried triumphantly. "My congratulations! You are just in time for the end!"

Wriggling like a worm, the Doctor managed to pull himself free from the narrow shaft, only just avoiding an avalanche of rubble cascading from the ceiling.

"You're insane!" he bellowed, crawling along the ground, inching his way towards the Rod of Rassilon, buried in the floor. "Do you hear me? _Insane! _You're releasing a force nothing can stop!"

"Take the Rod then!" the Master returned, his hand on the last valve release. "You can take it with you to your grave! Except that none of you will need a grave!"

"If you undo that, you'll die as surely as the rest of us!"

The Master cackled as steam began boiling up the chasm beneath the Eye, eerily back-lit with intermittent flashes of Time-fire. "You can do better than that, Doctor! Even in extremis, I wear the Sash of Rassilon!"

"_Yes!_" the Doctor shouted, trying to get to his knees, fighting against the impetus of the heaving floor. "And the President was wearing it when he was shot down! The Sash won't protect you! It's damaged!"

"You lie!" the Master screamed, his gaze automatically flickering down to the gleaming Sash around his neck.

Seeing his chance, the Doctor leapt at his enemy, flinging him bodily off the dais. Then, seizing one of the dangling pipes, he successfully reattached it, ignoring the tonnes of debris raining down all around him. With a determination born of desperation, the Master regained his balance and hurled himself back into the fray. He tackled the Doctor from behind and the two of them tumbled backwards to the floor, close to where Tejana lay. She saw the Master grab a long spar of wood out of the rubble, wielding it like a club and swinging it viciously at her fallen father. Thinking quickly, she summoned all her remaining energy and forced her foot to move, wedging it in his path as he surged forward, tripping him over. Taking the opportunity she had given him, the Doctor managed to dodge away up the sweeping stairway of the Panopticon. The Master growled like an animal, all rationality gone now as he single-mindedly continued to pursue his old adversary, the urge to murder evident in every line of his decaying body. Reaching the top of the stairs together, they grappled again, each of them fighting for possession of the club.

Tejana struggled to sit up, her head swimming. She could see that the Master was beginning to weaken. At last her father gained the upper hand, snatching the club violently away from his opponent. The Master faltered and missed his footing, before rolling all the way to the bottom of the stairs, his bones crunching horribly as he went. The Doctor threw the club aside and ran for the Eye of Harmony.

The shuddering had reached cataclysmic proportions by now. The dynamic balance of the Eye was failing. Gallifrey was starting to slip out of orbit, the energy fields forming the foundations of the planet beginning to tear asunder.

The Doctor fought desperately to reattach the pipes, but Gallifrey was so far gone that it was as if the planet itself was pitted against him. One pipe was reconnected, but there were still two to go. Dizzily, Tejana began to crawl towards him, leaving a trail of blood behind her. _Somehow she had to help._

There was a sudden blur of movement and the Master seemed to erupt out of nowhere, leaping ferally at the Doctor's back.

"Doctor!" Tejana shrieked in warning.

Her father spun around just in time and punched the Master brutally in the stomach. At the same time, there was a massive rending noise, resounding through the room like the doors of hell cracking open. The beautiful, inlaid malachite floor literally tore itself apart, a vast fissure opening up like a hungry, gaping maw at the foot of the dais. Tejana screamed, feeling herself swaying dangerously towards it, before managing to throw herself out of harm's way. But the Master wasn't so lucky. Reeling from the Doctor's punch, he lurched backwards, teetering for a few brief seconds on the verge, before falling like a stone into the chasm. His deformed hands scrabbled for purchase, clutching feverishly at the edge, trying to save himself. In the background, the Doctor was successfully reattaching the third pipe.

But Tejana couldn't look away from the Master as he fought for his life. She could see the livid bite-mark on his hand, left by her savage attack with her teeth. Frantically, he looked up at her and their eyes met. All at once, his mind opened to her and she could sense his terror, his awful, all-consuming fear of death, his soul-shattering dread of non-being.

_Help me, Tejana. Please, help me._

Unlike his physical voice, the mental voice was so heart-wrenchingly familiar. Tejana trembled. Again the Universe seemed to slip sideways and she heard not the plea of a twisted, evil, walking corpse, but instead the reassuring voice of the guardian angel that had gone with her on the long, long walk up the stairs of the Sanctuary of Cold Lamentation.

_Tejana. You're not alone. I'm here._

Almost without volition, she felt her hand reaching out for him, suddenly wanting to save him more than anything else in the world. He had been there for her when no-one else had been. She couldn't let him fall, couldn't let him die...

But even as she stretched out her hand, she saw the triumph blazing in his glaring, lidless eyes and, like a blade through the stomach, she knew without a doubt that if she dragged him to safety he would kill her and the Doctor and everyone else on Gallifrey, without compunction or remorse. She pulled her hand back.

"I can't. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"No!" he gasped, his grip on the edge already loosening, his strength gone. "Tejana, no! TEJANA!"

And, as she watched, his hands slipped free and he was gone.

Fighting back the hot tears, Tejana turned away, nausea rising inside her at the terrible choice she had been forced to make. The Doctor was still wrestling with the final pipe, unable to complete the connection. It was almost as though the Eye of Harmony was a living thing, the nucleus of the black hole striving to be free of the constraints Rassilon had placed on it so very long ago, rejecting all the Doctor's efforts to repair the damage the Master had done. There were only moments left now, the fate of Gallifrey and the entire stellar system hanging by a thread.

But then Tejana placed her hands over her father's, adding her strength to his, and it was enough. His eyes locked with hers and together they rammed home the final linkage. Slowly, very slowly, quiescent once more, the Eye of Harmony sank below the ground to its rest.

The balance of Gallifrey had been restored. Now its people were left to count the cost.


	15. Chapter 15

**_Author's Note: Last chapter, woot woot! Thank you to the following people who reviewed the previous chapter: Bad Dog No Biscuit, Catelly, Romana-II, padmay97, MayFairy, Astra68 and iLuvTwiBoyz.  
><em>**

**_Here it is..._  
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><p><strong>CHAPTER FIFTEEN<strong>

Dawn was breaking over Gallifrey, the twin suns rising in glorious tandem over the Mountains of Solace and Solitude, delicate golden light streaking the sky and turning it to liquid amber. Sitting in Lord Borusa's study, Tejana gazed out at the stunning panorama, amazed afresh at the astonishing beauty of her home planet, now all the more precious when she thought of how close it had come to being completely destroyed.

She was seated on a low couch to the side of the room, with Damon beside her. The Doctor was sprawled casually in a nearby chair, his long legs crossed in front of him. Spandrell and Engin stood together in mutual support, facing a horrified Lord Borusa.

Tejana could hear the Cardinal's voice droning on and on, but she couldn't find the energy to really take in what he was saying. The med-techs had cleaned and dressed the wound on her head, but it still throbbed unmercifully. She felt empty and hollow. It was all over. The Doctor had done what he came to do. He would be leaving again soon and she knew she would have say goodbye and then – somehow - pick up the reins of her old life.

_Oh gods, why did he have to come back at all?_ After years of anguished waiting, she had finally managed to become more or less resigned to never seeing her father again, to eking out her tedious existence from boring day to boring day without him, convincing herself that she no longer cared about him. But now, after being with him again, she knew the painful, humiliating truth was that she cared just as much as ever. She wanted his love, needed his approval _so much_, it was like an aching hunger inside her. After all the terrible events that had happened, how could she possibly go back to the way things were before? She closed her eyes and unwillingly thought of the Master, seeing it all over again in her mind, as his hands slipped away from the edge of the chasm. _Why did EITHER of them have to come back?_

Surreptitiously, she raised the hem of her robes slightly, looking down at her bare ankle. She didn't know why she kept checking obsessively, over and over again. It was almost as if she expected to see something, some trace, some _mark_, left behind by the Master's hand as he gripped her leg. But there was nothing. Her skin was as clear and unblemished as ever.

"Tejana? Are you all right?" Damon whispered in her ear.

"I...yes," she responded blankly. "I'm fine."

With an effort, she managed to return her attention to what was happening in the room. Like the rest of the Citadel, Borusa's study was a mess. The glass doors to the garden had shattered, the frames hanging loose and askew. Irreplaceable first edition books lay in tumbled abandon across the floor, some torn, others crushed. Artworks and antique furniture had been smashed to pieces. The glittering crystal chandelier had fallen from the ceiling, plummeting down to land on Borusa's desk, ice-sharp shards scattering from the impact like frozen tear drops.

"Half the city in ruins!" the Cardinal was saying in consternation, brushing stone dust fastidiously from his hands as he looked askance at the devastation surrounding him. "Untold damage! Countless lives lost!"

"But for the Doctor and Tejana, it could have been much worse!" Engin pointed out.

"Yes, indeed," Borusa replied in a brittle tone. "I'm very conscious of the debt we owe the two of them. But Gallifrey has never known such a catastrophe, such devastation! What will we _say_?"

"Well, you'll just have to adjust the truth again, Cardinal," the Doctor suggested dryly, climbing to his feet as he spoke. Then he gave Borusa a wide, cheeky grin. "What about a subsidence owing to a plague of mice?"

Damon gave a small, irrepressible chuckle at this, only to earn himself a freezing glance from Borusa. Self-consciously, the young Time Lord managed to turn the chuckle into a polite cough instead.

"As I believe I told you long ago, Doctor, you will never amount to anything in the galaxy while you retain your propensity for vulgar facetiousness," the Cardinal said reprovingly, as though the Doctor was still a disobedient schoolboy in his charge. Tejana couldn't help but wonder what sort of mischief her father and his best friend Koschei had got up to, all those years ago, when Borusa was their tutor. After the events of today, the poignant thought brought a lump to her throat.

"Yes, sir. You said that many times, sir," the Doctor responded, his voice appropriately humble, but with twinkling eyes. "May I go, sir?"

"Certainly you may, preferably with the utmost expedition," Borusa agreed pompously. "Lady Tejana, you may accompany your father to say your farewells. Then you will return here immediately, to discuss your recent insubordinate behaviour and appropriate remedial action."

Both Tejana's hearts sank, a wave of hopelessness washing over her. "Yes, Your Eminence," she replied dully. Damon gave her a sympathetic look and rose with her, both of them ready to follow the Doctor out of the door.

"Perhaps you will see that the transduction barriers are raised, Castellan," Borusa instructed.

Spandrell nodded. "Yes, Sir."

"Oh, and Doctor...?" Borusa added, as if as an afterthought.

"Sir?"

"Nine out of ten."

The Doctor grinned again. "Thank you, Sir."

* * *

><p>The small group gathered together again in one of the Citadel corridors, just outside the incongruous blue telephone box that was the Doctor's TARDIS. While no-one was looking, Tejana gently stroked the outside of the time machine, keenly sensing the low hum of approval that greeted her. She smiled wistfully. At least the TARDIS hadn't forgotten her. In the background, she could hear the ticking of a grandfather clock, faithfully marking the declining minutes and seconds remaining before her father left her behind yet again. Loneliness crowded around her, beating at her hearts like invisible vulture wings.<p>

The Doctor was shrugging back into a long, red coat and winding loop after loop of a ridiculous-looking striped knitted scarf around his neck.

"You know, Doctor, if you wanted to stay, I'm sure any past difficulties could be overlooked," Engin suggested in an awkward voice.

"Ah, but I like it out there, thank you very much," the Doctor returned with cheerful nonchalance.

"The barriers have been raised, Doctor," the Castellan told him.

"Thank you, Spandrell."

Engin shook his head. "It's we who should be thanking you, Doctor, for destroying the Master."

"Well, I didn't actually see him fall, you know. I was quite busy," the Doctor replied, his eyes resting thoughtfully on his daughter. Tejana lifted her chin and returned his gaze, but said nothing. Who knew, perhaps the Doctor believed she had pushed the Master to his death. Her soft lips tightened. If so, then let him. After all, she may as well have.

"Oh, but if he somehow survived the fall into the chasm, he was dying anyway," Engin protested.

"There was a good deal of power coming out of that monolith. And the Sash would have helped him convert it."

"Are you suggesting he survived?" Damon spoke up incredulously.

"I hope not, Damon," the Doctor answered firmly. "And there's no-one in all the galaxies I would say that about! The quintessence of evil!"

Reaching out, he grasped the young Time Lord's hand and shook it enthusiastically. "Goodbye, Damon. Nice to meet you!"

"Goodbye, Doctor."

The Doctor turned towards his daughter. _This is it then_, she thought bitterly. _ This is goodbye_. _Again_. Deep inside, a small child wailed, wanting to cry and beg him to take her with him, just as she had cried and begged so long ago when he had first left. But she wasn't eight years old any more and her pride would no longer allow her to demean herself like that. Summoning all her self-control, she kept her face cool and emotionless, a habitual mask born of long practice, waiting for his words of farewell.

Deliberately, the Doctor unfurled his fedora hat and placed it jauntily upon his curly head. "Well, hurry up then!" he said. "Can't wait around for you all day, you know! We've got places to go, people to see!"

Tejana almost stopped breathing with shock. "You mean...I can come with you?"

"Come?" he responded, giving her his widest, toothiest grin. "Well, of course you can come! You're my daughter! I wouldn't have it any other way!"

Joy blazed through her, lighting her eyes like the glow of Gallifrey's rising suns. This time she wasn't being abandoned, she wasn't being left behind. _This time he really wanted her_! The wild, incredulous euphoria surged through her veins, as effervescent as champagne bubbles. Whirling around, she turned to share her elation with Damon, just as she had always shared everything with Damon. But the look on his face brought her up short. He suddenly looked so sad...so lost and desolate.

"Oh, Damon," she whispered, holding his hands in hers.

He gave her one of his sweet, unselfish smiles. "It's fine, Tejana. You've always been supportive of my dreams. Now it's my turn to tell you to go and live yours," he replied gently.

"Damon..." she tried again, her voice choking with emotion. She was going to miss him so much – he would never know how much.

"Go!" he repeated. "Gallifrey will always be here when you want to come back. And so will I."

She wanted to say goodbye properly. She wanted to say so many things, wanted to thank him for every wonderful thing he had ever done for her, but she couldn't speak. So instead, she raised her lips to his and kissed him with all that was in her hearts. His arms came around her and he kissed her back, his hands softly stroking through her long, blonde hair.

"Remember, this isn't a goodbye," she said in a muffled voice. "It's a 'See you later!'"

"Absolutely!" he agreed unsteadily. "See you later."

With one last, watery smile, she turned away from him and followed the Doctor towards the TARDIS, watching as her father tossed his improbably long scarf over his shoulder.

"You'll trip over that scarf one day, if you're not careful," she warned wryly.

"Nonsense!" he retorted in a lofty tone. "I'm the Doctor! I never trip."

And even as he spoke, he missed his footing and almost fell inside the TARDIS, only just saving himself by grasping at the door frame. Tejana laughed and the sound was wild and reckless and silvery in her own ears, the beautiful and enticing sound of freedom.

"No, how silly of me, of course you don't!"

Behind her, she could hear Damon laughing too, sharing this one last joke with her. At long last, a heavy weight seemed to have rolled off her back and she felt as light as thistledown.

"Wait! Tejana, you can't just leave!" Spandrell exclaimed worriedly. "What will Cardinal Borusa say?"

"Cardinal Borusa can go and..." Tejana began.

"Tejana!" the Doctor admonished sharply.

"...find another personal assistant!" she finished with a grin. "Goodbye, Castellan! Goodbye, Co-ordinator! Goodbye, Damon! Goodbye, _GALLIFREY_!"

With that, father and daughter both waved and disappeared inside the TARDIS, off to explore the Universe together. A distinctive wheezing, groaning sound echoed around the corridor and the police box began to fade in and out before de-materialising altogether.

Spandrell, Engin and Damon all looked at each other silently for a moment and then turned away up the corridor together, each of them intent on returning to the massive task of restoring their devastated planet.

None of them noticed a dark shadow slithering along the wall, heading for the grandfather clock Tejana had heard ticking earlier. Quickly, the Master opened the front of the clock and slipped like a phantom into his TARDIS.

_It wasn't over. He and the Doctor would meet again and he would have his revenge. Because one thing was certain – the Universe would NEVER be big enough for the two of them._

**THE END**

* * *

><p><strong><em>Another Author's Note: So there it is, the end of my first AU episode re-write. What did you think? Hopefully, Aietradaea liked it, since it was for her. And actually, I really enjoyed writing it, it was a nice break from writing "The Master's Rose" - very different from writing my own plot, etc. So...I've been thinking about attempting the same thing with "Utopia" and maybe "The Sound of Drums". What do people reckon about that - would anyone read it, do you think?<em>**


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